Through a Friend's Pain
by Alasse
Summary: The staff react in different ways to the assassination attempt on the President. Some cry, some reflect, and some joke. Told in first person by the staff. Begins at the very end of 'What Kind of Day Has it Been'. Rating for violence and language.
1. Josh Lyman1

A/N: Yes, I am a horrible person who deserves to be hanged. I have two fanfics out that are NOT done, and here I am starting a third one. I cannot help it. Things happen that are outside my control. I was watching my Season One West Wing, and then my Season Two West Wing when an idea hit me. A plot bunny if you will. It just came out of nowhere, and I HAD to write it. I had to write it. I couldn't help it.  
  
This starts at the very end of 'What Kind of Day Has it Been' and continues on through 'In the Shadow of Two Gunmen Parts I and II' at least. I have no idea how longer it's going to go on after that. It is told in first person, and tells their reaction to the shooting, and the aftermath with the President and Josh. I am a character writer, and most of this will be developing their characters. Sorry if they don't seem true to you, I am writing them like how I perceive them. Sam, Josh, and Toby will all seem a little alike, because they are a little alike.  
  
Please note that this is my first West Wing fanfiction, characters will not be perfectly in character, nor will it be much good. Constructive critics is appreciated, but please, don't hurt my feelings.  
  
Disclaimer: The West Wing belongs to that miracle genius Aaron Sorkin, and to all the folks at West Wing. The characters belong to themselves.  
  
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Josh's POV  
  
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Okay, so maybe it was a stupid idea. I'd just like to say for my part, that I didn't know how stupid it was going to be until after I did it. Or maybe it was stupid from the beginning, and it just turned dangerous at the end. Or maybe my actions wouldn't have made a bit of difference in the world. It doesn't really matter.  
  
The important thing to know is that when we got outside from the meeting, I realized that I had left my pen inside. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem as I can afford to buy plenty of pens even on a government salary, but this was a problem. See, my dad had given me that pen when I graduated from Harvard. Hence, a very important pen.  
  
So I turned back to go into the Town Hall. From the beautiful view of hindsight, I can now see my first mistake. I turned back without telling anyone that I was turning back. That was a big mistake. Maybe if I had just turned to Sam and said, "Hey Sam. I left something back there, I'll be out in a second," things wouldn't have been that bad. But I didn't say anything, didn't talk to anyone, didn't acknowledge anyone's presence in anyway, and I went back.  
  
It took me approximately ten seconds to locate the pen, and I was out of there. When I got out, there were several people milling around, but they didn't give me any notice. After all, I'm the Deputy Chief of Staff. Not that many members of the public (excepting my glorious fan club) notice me. So I came to these steps, and saw that the gate was closed. Now normally, that would be a big enough problem. The gate was closed, and I would need a Secret Service person to open it back up for me, which would make them grumpy. But my problems were about to get a whole lot bigger than a closed gate.  
  
One of the Secret Service agents assigned to Zoey (Gina? I couldn't remember her name) turned around. She screamed out "Gun!" a second before the first shot was fired. Instant pandemonium. Smoke was everywhere, people were screaming, and the Secret Service started yelling and firing back.  
  
I rant to the gate, trying to see what was going on, and if I could see the President. Second mistake. If I'd stayed at the top of the steps, I would have been out of range, and things (for me) would have been better. But no. My stupid sense of humanity got in the way. Panic took control, and I flung myself against the gate, hoping against hope that it would open. It didn't.  
  
I couldn't see the President, Sam, Toby, CJ, Leo, Charlie, Zoey...I couldn't see any of them. Fear for their lives filled me, and I had this really meaningless desire to help them, even though there wasn't a lot that I could do. I backed away from the gate, and stumbled as someone pushed into me. I had barely gotten over that when I felt it. A huge, sharp, overwhelming pain that brought me down to my knees. It felt like my lungs weren't working, because when I tried to take in a breath, and nothing went into my body at all. It felt like someone had just punched me in the gut, but it got worse than that. Much worse. Shots were still being fired as I put my hand over the pain. Warm liquid gushed out over my hand, and then it came to me: I had been hit.  
  
It's not like I had never seen a bullet before, I had seen plenty of them when arguing for more gun control. It's just that I had no idea that they caused that much pain. It felt like a roaring fire had just been lit inside of me. It swept through my stomach, heart, head, and legs. Something was tearing at me, ripping away my flesh. A white-hot pain was going through my chest, and I felt lightheaded as more and more blood flowed out of me. And shots were still being fired.  
  
With my brain shutting down, I did the only thing that I could think of. I managed to crawl behind the steps, where a slab of concrete was protecting me. I could feel numbness creeping in all over my body, and the blood kept on flowing. I tried to staunch the flow and call for help as sirens replaced the gunshots.  
  
From my position, I couldn't see what was going on, and no one could see me. Blue and red lights danced all around. The wailing, screaming, piercing noise of sirens were blasting through my dazed brain. I could feel that a large portion of my shirt was soaked with blood. My blood. I tried to focus, I really did. I tried to get up, to make my way to the sirens, but my legs wouldn't cooperate. No one seemed to notice me as they rushed around me. That was when the heart stopping fear got me.  
  
I was gong to die here. I was going to die on the steps of a Town Hall in Rosslyn Virginia, and no one was going to care. No one was going to notice. The passing of Josh Lyman would go unmarked by time, and no one was going to come to try and comfort me. My family, my friends, I was never going to see them again before I died. I tried to call for help again, but getting in a minimal supply of oxygen was hard enough.  
  
The blue and red lights and the sirens blurred all together and became one. My brain was slipping...slipping...slipping... "Josh?" From somewhere I found the willpower to hang on. My fingers gripped the wound tighter. "Josh?" I could now recognize the voice.  
  
Toby! Dear, sweet, good, kind, lovable Toby! He remembered me! "I'm up here!" I tried to shout, and then panic set in again when I realized that I couldn't tell him where I was. "Toby! I'm right here! I need help!" But I couldn't yell, and I realized that I would soon be unconscious.  
  
"Josh!" he yelled again. Try as I might, I couldn't speak. And that was slightly disconcerting coming from a guy that makes his salary from arguing with people. And the darkness was setting in faster now. Black was creeping in on the edges of my blurred vision. It was now all that I could do to make myself stay awake, and pray that he would find me. "Josh! Josh, didn't you hear me calling...you?" His voice faded. I stared in what I hoped was his general direction while trying to make my vision clear and my damn voice work.  
  
"I need..." I could hear his voice falter again, "I need a doctor!" I could feel my grip on reality leaving. My eyes widened and my mouth worked furiously as I tried to keep from passing out. "I need help!" My body started to slide to the left, and Toby's arms reached out to catch me. My head hit the pavement, and my eyes closed. I passed out, but not before hearing C.J's scream.  
  
"Josh!"  
  
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Well geez. That was probably worse than what I thought it was going to be. But hey, you could help me out here. Just tell me how bad you thought it was by clicking that blue button down there.  
  
See? Right here. 


	2. Toby Ziegler1

A/N: Well, I am back. This is one of the stories that pretty much write themselves, although I shouldn't say that. If it wrote itself, then no doubt it would be better than what it is right now. It makes me feel better that people like this. It's very hard to get inside these people's minds. Fun, but hard. I'm going to be providing several different views -not everyone's- on the shooting. And their perspectives on what happened afterward.  
  
This is told from Toby's point of view, and it will most likely sound a lot like Josh, but Toby is a lot like Josh, so that's how I can get away with it.  
  
Disclaimer: If I wished that they belonged to me, would that mean that they belonged to me?  
  
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Toby Ziegler's POV  
  
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When you look back on it, it's not easy to see where it all began. Normally, I can look back on the bad events and see exactly where it went wrong. Like when we had the big mess with the President's secret plan to fight inflation. Where we went wrong on that situation was when we allowed Josh in the press room, and let him do the briefing. But with this, there was nothing that anyone could have done. And for once, it wasn't Sam, Josh, or CJ that screwed things up. For once.  
  
No, no one screwed this up. Sure, there were several things that we could have done differently. For one thing, the President worked the rope- line. He had been talking about his softball game all day, and yet here he was, walking down the rope-line. I hung back with other members of the staff.  
  
It would be too melodramatic to say that I felt a sense of foreboding. At the time, I was feeling two things: hunger, and annoyance. Hunger because I had been too worried about Columbia to eat, and annoyance because I was hungry, and I couldn't get anything to eat. I was just about the decided which emotion was stronger (it probably would have been annoyance) when I heard the shout.  
  
"Gun!" There were explosions happening all around me. People started screaming and running around. I saw Sam knock CJ down just before someone hit me. I couldn't tell whether or not it was a member of the crowd, or a Secret Service agent. My head hit one of the barriers. A flash of pain went through my head. The loud blasts of gunfire went through my skull and drilled into my brain. The noise was so loud that it felt like my eardrums were going to explode.  
  
Even after the gunfire stopped, my ears were still ringing. Secret Service agents were running around and shouting into their walkie-talkies. "We've got people down! Keep them down! Who's been hit? Who's been hit?" It was chaos. I don't think that the police officers and Secret knew what they were supposed to be doing.  
  
I got to my feet. I couldn't stop my arms and legs from shaking. I'd seen shootings before, but nothing like that. While it was happening, I hadn't had any real emotions. After the shooting, I was filled with a wild terror. Our own helplessness was suddenly shoved in our faces. My breath was coming in short little gasps, and I'm sure that my eyes held a wild, maniacal gleam in them.  
  
"Toby!" I turned around, adrenaline coursing through me. Sam was walking quickly towards me. He looked like how I felt. His brown hair was sticking in all directions, his face was flushed, and his eyes were wide and terrified. "Toby, thank God you're all right!" he said, grabbing my arm tightly as if to reassure himself that I was real.  
  
"Yeah," I said breathlessly. "Yeah. Are you all right?"  
  
"I'm okay," he said. "CJ was with me; I think that she was a little shaken up, but she's all right."  
  
"Yeah," I echoed again. Paramedics started flowing in with their flashing lights and sirens. There began to be a semblance of order, though chaos was still prevalent. People were wandering around with dazed, stupid looks on their face. It was just like we had all been through a battle. It was shell-shock.  
  
I glanced around the scene. Members of the crowd were crying and holding onto each other. I could see Sam wandering over to talk to CJ, and I could see someone closely resembling Charlie talking to some people. It didn't bother me that I couldn't see the President, Zoey, or Leo, because I knew that those would have been the first people out of there. No, what really bothered me was the fact that I couldn't see Josh.  
  
I know Josh. He's a good person. He would be right in the middle of this, trying to help people. And although I might not really like him, I do sometimes feel certain friendly emotions concerning him. He's helped me in some tight spots. So I was bothered.  
  
"Josh?" I called out, noting the faint hint of panic that had crept into my voice. I walked over to the gate, which was now open. It had been closed right behind us when we went out. I ran into Charlie. "Charlie, are you all right?" I asked. It's a stupid question really, when something like that happens. He wasn't all right. I wasn't all right. But I asked it anyway. He nodded, but before he could say anything else I slapped him with another question. "Listen, have you seen Josh?"  
  
"He got in the car with Leo," Charlie told me. But I could tell from his posture that he wasn't sure of his answer. And I knew it wasn't right.  
  
"No, no he didn't," I told him, now more than a bit concerned. Charlie was going to say something else, but his attention was called by a woman. I was left standing alone in the midst of milling people. A creeping concern came onto me. Where was Josh? Could he...no, it wasn't possible. He couldn't be hurt. He was probably just settling his nerves somewhere.  
  
"Josh?" I called out again. Relief flooded through me as I saw a person wearing a suit that looked like his, and fly-away hair that definitely was his. He was leaning up against a wall with his back towards me. Relief was quickly replaced by annoyance as he didn't even move. I was calling his name, and actually caring how he was, and he wasn't answering me? That was so typical of him. He would be laughing when I got to him, pleased that he got an actual caring emotion out of me. My annoyance was then replaced by full-throttle anger.  
  
"Josh, didn't you hear me calling..?" my voice tapered off as I faced him. He was clutching his torso, and there was a large bloodstain spreading over his blue shirt. His brown eyes were wide, and there wasn't a shred of recognition in them that I could see. I was nearly knocked over by shock. Full-throttle anger was shoved aside in favor of a terrified panic. "I need..." my voice failed as I looked at him again, "I need a doctor!" Some people turned to look at me in amazement. There wasn't anyone here that didn't need a doctor. How come I was so special? I was caught again in my own helplessness. "I need help!" I finally yelled out.  
  
Josh started to slide over to my right. His mouth opened and shut several times, and his eyes widened. He slid off the wall completely, and I reached out to catch him. I tried to put him down as gently as I could on the pavement. His head rolled to the side as he lost consciousness. CJ's cry alerted all the paramedics to the situation.  
  
"Josh!" she screamed as she ran towards us. I had no idea that CJ could run that fast. Sam came right on her heels. She and Sam knelt beside me and anxiously peered into Josh's slack face. We knew that there was nothing that we could do, but it was the damned helplessness again. You felt better if you were sitting right beside someone and not helping rather than ten feet away from them and not helping. "What happened?" CJ asked, turning his head to face her.  
  
"I think it's fairly obvious," I said, unable to stop the biting sarcasm.  
  
Paramedics rushed over to us and pushed out of the way. "Please, stand aside sir," one of them said politely. "We need to work. Sam, CJ, and I were shoved away by blue-coated men and women. They worked furiously, and I had absolutely no idea about what they were doing.  
  
"We've a white male, single gunshot wound, loss of blood," one of them yelled out. "We need to get him to GW!" Two of them came with a stretcher and loaded Josh up onto it. "One of you can ride in the ambulance," a woman told us.  
  
"I'll go," Sam said. He jumped in the back of the ambulance. They put Josh in the ambulance, and shut the door. I stood watching them for half a second, then turned to the person standing beside me.  
  
"CJ, can we get a car?"  
  
"I'm on it," she replied, and sprinted away. the ambulance blazed out of the parking lot with its siren blaring. Thirty seconds later, CJ came back to me. "I got us a car," she panted. I nodded, and ran after her towards the car. The doors slammed, and then we were right behind the ambulance. I could only look at CJ, and know that she felt the same worry that I did. The sirens seemed to escalate the size of the emergency, and raise my heart rate until it felt like my heart was about to jump out of my chest. I bent my head and offered up a silent prayer for Josh.  
  
"Oh Lord, please let him be all right." 


	3. Zoey Bartlet1

A/N: I was trapped in a car for over five hours, so hence, two updates in one day. Can I just say first and foremost that Zoey is a very difficult character to write? I'm treading the line between making her seem a little ditzy, and then making her seem very serious, and very deep. And it's a hard line to tread.  
  
Disclaimer: Argh. I am not bright enough, nor politically savvy enough to have created the West Wing, or even claim ownership to it.  
  
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Zoey Bartlet's POV  
  
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Ever since my dad was elected President, I'd always known that my life might in danger some day. But I wasn't expecting it. I guess it's kind of like a pop quiz in that way. You don't know what's going to happen until your teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Let's see how many of you did your homework." Except with this, I wasn't sitting in a class. I had just walked out of a Town Hall meeting with Gina and Charlie. And I was slightly ticked off.  
  
Dad had made the joke about the baby pictures again. It was the fourth time in three months he had made that joke at a speech. I'd tried to talk to Sam about it, but he just waved me off. And I didn't even TRY to talk to Toby. He scares me a little. But I think he scares his staff A LOT. Charlie just said that it wasn't his place to comment on the President's speeches, while Josh just smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and said that it was Toby and Sam who wrote the speeches and the President who delivers them. There is no justice.  
  
So I was walking out, arm in arm with Charlie. Gina was walking a few paces beside us. Gina was like the rest of the Secret Service in that she had this aura. It secreted not exactly violence, but a sort of cloaked hostility. It said quite clearly: "Don't mess with us." How could you not feel safe with someone like that standing next to you?  
  
I stood beside Charlie and leaned against the car. Dad was working the rope-line, again. There is nothing that will stop him from working a rope-line. I think he's addicted to it. "Oh by the way Gina, Charlie apologized to me. He made a full apology." I smiled and tried to talk to her, but she was scanning the crowd urgently.  
  
"I saw something," she said to herself. I really didn't know what she was talking about, so I ignored her. She seemed oddly frantic about something, I just didn't know what it was. So I kept on talking to Charlie about some completely unimportant information. "I saw something!" she yelled. Now I was getting concerned.  
  
I moved away from Charlie a bit, and Gina moved in beside us. She stared intently at the crowd. I watched her in an unconcerned way. I'd done this before at least a hundred times. Dad comes out, talks to the crowd, Secret Service looks intimidating, staff looks bored/happy, and we all go home. Gina was just nervous. She looked at the crowd, and then really did see something. Her eyes widened. She spun around and stared at a building. Charlie mimicked her actions. I was just about to look and see what was happening when Gina gave that fateful yell.  
  
"Gun!" she screamed out. Now I was quite awake, very confused, and very scared. A huge explosion went off. It sounded like the fireworks that Dad always made us watch on the Fourth of July. The gunfire looked like fireworks too. I was frozen in fear, but Gina acted immediately. She ran into Charlie like she was playing football and knocked him over. I was still standing straight up like an idiot when Gina switched directions.  
  
"Get down!" she yelled as she pulled me to the ground. I could hear bullets going off the car, and see several Secret Service agents firing back. I could see about sixty Secret Service agents converge on my Dad. He looked as startled as I was. They pulled him into a car and slammed the door shut.  
  
While I was sitting and being absolutely petrified, Gina was still working. She opened the car door. "Get in!" she yelled at me. She appeared to be absolutely and totally calm. I was still frozen in fear and couldn't move, so she shoved me in the car.  
  
As soon as I was in the car it took off. We must have gone from 0 to 80 in two seconds. There were two other Secret Service agents in the car with me. I couldn't recall their names off the top of my head. They weren't part of my usual detail. I craned my neck to see what was happening behind us, to see if I could catch a glimpse of Charlie, but we were too far away.  
  
I turned around and tried to focus on the questions that the agents were asking me. "Zoey, are you all right?" they asked hurriedly. My stomach was churning, and my head felt like it was spinning a million miles an hour. "Zoey?" they asked again, putting their hands on my shoulders. I opened my mouth to answer their questions, and my lunch came out. I couldn't stop it. What I had just seen was terrifying and disgusting.  
  
Ever since we moved into the White House, I'd always known that people were going to hate my dad enough to kill him. But I hadn't really thought about it. I guess it's nothing new. There's been times when I've been mad enough at my dad to kill him. But for someone to actually act on the impulse...it was unthinkable. I mean, who could hate my father enough to actually kill him? What kind of a monster could he be? Did they know that he wasn't just the President? Did they know that he was a doting husband and a loving father? Did they know that he was a rabid Notre Dame fan and that he didn't like green beans? Did they think about any of that? Did they think about his person at all, instead of just his title? Did they know that they weren't just killing the leader of the free world, that they were going to kill my Daddy? Did any of those thoughts go through their mind before they pulled the trigger?  
  
While I was throwing up, one of the walkie-talkies went off. The Secret Service agent on my right talked into before I had finished depositing everything that I had eaten in the last six years on the floor. "That was Ron," he said to the one on my left. "He says the President's secure, we're going back to the White House. We don't know the injury count yet. Paramedics should be there in a few minutes."  
  
"Can I talk to him?" I asked, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. "I want to talk to him."  
  
"We're going to try to get the President on," the one on my left said just before the brakes slammed on. We were all thrown forward, and I came dangerously close to landing in my own barf. "What the...?" one of them asked, and immediately started punching in numbers on the walkie-talkie. "What's happening?" he yelled as we spun a 180 and went in the opposite direction. He listened for a few minutes and then turned to the other agent. "We're going to GW," he said gravely. "Eagle was hit."  
  
DADDY!!!!!!!!! 


	4. CJ Cregg1

A/N: Well, I'm back. And I'm really glad to see that this story has its own little band of followers. You guys make my days happy. You really do. So here I come with another chapter. Glad to hear that you liked Zoey.  
  
Also, I've been watching over my tapes of WKODIB, ITSOTG, and Noel—from what I can piece together, Josh ran to the gate first, someone ran into him, and Toby found him at the stairs that were BEHIND the gate. That's what I'm assuming happened. To get full details, one would probably have to talk to Aaron Sorkin.  
  
Disclaimer: Do I honestly have to do one of these for every single chapter? Gets repetitive after a while.  
  
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CJ Cregg's POV  
  
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All right, so I screamed. It was a typical womanly thing to do. But I couldn't help it. it was one of the cases where you speak exactly what you're thinking without even realizing what you're thinking/saying. If I had the chance to replay that moment over again, would I scream? Probably. It's just lucky that there were no reporters there. There would have been a mention in the morning report about CJ Cregg, press secretary, screaming out the Deputy Chief of Staff's name (the wonderful and accomplished Josh Lyman) and running towards him. Or maybe I'm flattering myself.  
  
But it was an emotionally draining night. The President had delivered an absolutely stunning performance. The pilot had been returned home safely, and the Columbia had landed. So everyone was in an extraordinarily good mood. I think that even Toby had a little smile on his face as he walked out beside the President. Leo was right beside them, and Sam was beside me. I think that Josh might have been beside us at one point, but when I turned and looked, he was gone. We were all simply standing around, laughing and joking without a care in the world. That's when we heard the warning shout.  
  
"Gun!" I had no idea who screamed it out. Loud blasts rang through the small plaza. "So those are gunshots," I told myself. "Wow. The sound effects on Roger's movies were worse than what I thought." After I had that thought, another one came to me. Here I was, standing straight up while gunshots were being fired all around me. And I'm a tall woman, and therefore an easy target. Yet for some reason I could NOT make myself move.  
  
A Secret Service agent barreled into me. He was holding his gun upright and focused on a high window. He just ran into me, and pushed me aside. I guess that Press Secretary isn't very high up on the Secret Service's priority list. A police car light on the top of the car was shot away right in front of me. A piece of glass hit my hand and made a shallow cut.  
  
Almost immediately after that, someone tackled me to the ground. I had no idea who it was, but whoever it was probably saved my life. The police car's windows were shot out right after the person knocked me down. I think that the fall to the ground knocked me unconscious, because I don't have any other recollection of the entire shooting. The next thing I remember is getting up shakily. There was no sign of my unnamed rescuer.  
  
There was a roaring pain in my head. Evidently when your head hits the ground at a high velocity, your head is prone to hurt. There was blood on my hand from where I touched my head. Everything was an absolute mess. People were running around with no real purpose, and the people who were actually hurt stood a very good chance of getting run over by the people who were simply panicked. It was like the energy and insanity of the press room had been unleashed on the population at large.  
  
I tottered around shakily. Ambulances flowed in a steady stream. The quiet town of Rosslyn had woken up. I felt curiously detached from everything that was happening. There was an echoing in my ears, and I felt like I had just gotten off a double Ferris Wheel. My stomach and head were spinning around, and up and down. My vision was blurry, and I deduced that my glasses had fallen off.  
  
I stumbled forward and ran into someone. I stepped back and saw that it was Charlie. He put an arm out to steady me. "CJ, are you all right?" he asked. He seemed fine. He wasn't like everyone else. He was perfectly settled, and calm and focused, in contrast with the mass hysteria.  
  
"Um, yeah, yeah I am," I said, shaking my head to clear the pain. It just made the pain slightly worse. Not just slightly. It made a fire in the fireplace roar into a blazing forest fire in California.  
  
"Are you sure? Because it looks like you're bleeding," he said, motioning to my head. "Here. There's some EMTs over there; they'll get you fixed up." He led me over to where a paramedic was working on a man with a cut on his arm. The paramedic finished with him and turned to me.  
  
"If you'll sit down here ma'am," he said. he poked around the wound and put some antiseptic on it.  
  
"Ow!" I cried out. The sting was ten times more painful than it usually was. "It's tender!" He ignored me and focused on the cut. "I'm really fine," I said in a thick voice. "I hit my head on the ground. Somebody pushed me down." I don't think that he was even listening to me.  
  
"Are you CJ Cregg?" he yelled into my ear. Interesting how they can be so politely mean. I had a huge gushing head wound, and he was yelling into my ear.  
  
"Yes!" I yelled back. Turns out that if you spoke in a normal voice, no one could hear you.  
  
"Can you tell me what day it is?"  
  
"It's still Monday," I replied. My god was it really the same day? Shouldn't time have moved faster than that? It's not really quite fair. It shouldn't still be the same day. Not when all that had happened.  
  
"All right CJ, you're more shaken up than anything else. I don't think that you're going to need stitches, but you should probably find somewhere to lie down." He picked up some of his supplies that he needed. I had a sudden thought, and a flying concern.  
  
"Is the President dead?" I asked as he started to move away.  
  
"I wouldn't know anything about that ma'am," he called over his shoulder as he jogged away. I was confused and woozy. I walked to where I had been knocked down. My glasses were lying there, but one of the lenses had been knocked out. Shaking my head, I put the glasses back in my pocket. I ran my hand over my neck and felt a sharp sting. I then felt around my collarbone and realized that I couldn't feel my necklace. It must have been torn off when the person that had saved my life knocked me down. I turned around and saw Sam coming towards me.  
  
Sam! He was all right! He was the second person I had seen from the staff. So I had Charlie and Sam checked off my mental list of people who were all right. The only other people I had left were the President, Toby, Zoey, Leo, and Josh. Well actually...that was a pretty big list.  
  
Sam said something and I couldn't make it out, so he repeated himself. "Are you all right?" he asked again. That seemed to be the main question of the night. Everyone was asking it. Are you all right? I've just been shot at; no, I don't think that I'm all right.  
  
"Yeah," I said, and then quickly changed gears. "Where's the President?" Please, oh God, let him be all right, please, please, let him be all right...  
  
"He's on his way back to the White House," Sam said, and I silently rejoiced. "So's Zoey, they just put Leo in a car. Are you all right?" The same question, yet again!  
  
"Somebody pushed me down," I said. Police cars drove around, and the sirens were about to drive me insane. They never shut up, and they were so loud.  
  
Sam ignored that, and then turned. Gina, one of Zoey's Secret Service people ran by us. She was the one that had shouted, I now realized. She saved all of our lives. "Gina!" he yelled at her.  
  
"Can't talk right now," she quickly replied, and ran to where several people in suits were standing. Sam and I didn't say anything. We tried to look like we weren't eavesdropping on a Secret Service conversation. Who knows? We might end up spending some time in jail for that.  
  
I was checking more people off my list. Sam and Charlie were all right, and I knew now that the President, Zoey, and Leo were all right. So now I had to concentrate on Josh and Toby. Please let them be all right, I prayed yet again. But maybe there's a limit on how many times your prayers will be answered. Maybe I had already used up my quota on the President, and there was no more left for Josh or Toby.  
  
I was pondering this rather disquieting thought when I heard the shout. There seemed to be quite a lot of shouting going on tonight. "I need a doctor!" Toby shouted. Sam and I both turned. First thought: Toby was hit! But no, he would have screamed long before that. Second thought: Toby's helping a member of the crowd. How sweet. But I never, ever dreamed that the situation would be what it was. "I need help!" Toby yelled again. This time he seemed oddly urgent.  
  
And then I saw why. The recognizable head of Josh hit the ground. There was way that I couldn't recognize that crazy hair after almost two years of working together. I sprinted over to Toby while screaming out, "Josh!" I was over there in a matter of seconds. Lucky I work out and wear sensible shoes.  
  
I knelt next to Toby and turned Josh's head to face me. He was unconscious, and his slack face looked oddly like he was dead. His mouth hung open a fraction in what my mother always liked to call the 'dead fish face'. It felt like I'd just been punched in the stomach. All of the air went out of my lungs, and dread and fear hit me. Had I used up all of my prayer power on the President? Was there none left for Josh? Did Josh get ignored by God? How come Toby, Leo, Sam and I weren't hit? We were right there at the shooting. Josh was behind us. How come he got hit and we didn't? Does God just have a sense of sick humor or something?  
  
"What happened?" I asked as I looked more closely into his face. Sam cautiously put his hand over the wound. He didn't touch the wound. His hand just hovered over the huge bloodstain.  
  
"I think that's fairly obvious," Toby responded tartly. I drew back from him a little. I know it was a stupid question, but he didn't have to snap at me. Then again, maybe sarcasm is Toby's virtue of defense.  
  
The doctors and paramedics came rushing over. They shoved us aside. We were looking on helplessly as the paramedics began work. It was horrible to watch, but I couldn't tear my eyes away. They checked his pulse and blood pressure while they tore open his shirt. I almost gagged. The bullet wound looked ten times worse than it did when his shirt covered it.  
  
The bullet had torn apart his entire chest. Blood was pouring out of the wound. The flesh was torn and mangled. I could see all of the destruction from my vantage point of six feet. but the wound itself wasn't the worst part. The worst part happened about halfway through the procedure.  
  
Josh opened his eyes. I don't know if Sam saw it; I know Toby didn't see it. He was, for fifteen seconds, completely conscious. There were two emotions that I could see warring in his eyes. The first was total and absolute confusion as to who was surrounding him and where he was. It was clear that he had no idea what was happening. The second emotion was the most gut-wrenching. There was a brief shift when I looked into his eyes, and I could see the raw feeling behind the deep brown pools. And it was terror. It was the kind of terror that wakes you up screaming at 2 in the morning in a cold sweat and wanting to pee your pants. It was just for a second, and then the confused look slid over his features again. He coughed as the paramedics probed around the wound, then someone put an oxygen mask over his face. And then he passed out again.  
  
The paramedics started saying things that I couldn't understand because I went to school for 22 years for a media consultant degree instead of a medical degree. Also, I don't watch ER. The main gist of their talk seemed to be that they were taking Josh to the hospital. Sam volunteered to ride in the ambulance, and neither Toby nor I contested it. We were soon in a car and driving right behind the ambulance. The flashing lights seared into my eyelids and the siren hurt my already pounding head. I looked at Toby, and could find nothing comforting to say. My chest was feeling tight, like I couldn't draw enough oxygen. Toby bent his head for a short moment, and then looked straight ahead.  
  
I looked at Toby, and Toby looked at me. Neither of us could say anything that would be comforting and not sound like a lie. I just swallowed and squeezed Toby's forearm tightly. He waited for a second, and then squeezed my hand back. 


	5. Josh Lyman2

A/N: Back again. Just got home from the Fair, and I would like a round of applause-I did not throw up ONCE at the Fair! Thank you, thank you.  
  
Glad to know that you still like it. Reviews make my day. Oh, and I actually looked up the spelling—it's Rosslyn. Thank you to all of the people who pointed that out. I'm sorry. The author lowers her head, and accepts beatings from all of the people who were right.  
  
Disclaimer: Check it out at NBC. Not mine.  
  
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Josh Lyman's POV  
  
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I wish that I could say that I don't remember anything about the shooting. I wish that I could say that the only things that I remember are the meeting, and then the gunshots. I wish to God that I could say that. But I can't say that, because quite frankly, it's not true. I can remember almost everything. There are several blank spots in my memory, but the most part I can piece most of it together.  
  
I woke up while the paramedics were working on me. I wasn't quite coherent at the time. I couldn't recall why I was there, or for that matter, where I was. There were people surrounding me, and a huge, consuming pain in my gut. Red, blue, and yellow lights blurred in my vision. The scene kept on changing right in front of my eyes. The sirens remained the same, as did the night, but everything else changed.  
  
I was standing outside in the freezing cold, watching flames lick up on the roof of a house. People were standing beside me and looking at the fire in horror. I was aware of a coat being thrown around my shoulders. A car screeched into the driveway among the police cars and the fire trucks. A woman ran out of the car while it was still moving and sprinted straight towards me.  
  
"Josh!" she screamed, throwing her arms wide and gathering me in a loving embrace. She swung me on her hip and kissed me on the cheeks and forehead many times. A man came and stood right beside her and smoothed back the hair on my forehead. "Oh Josh," the woman said, kissing me on the top of the head as I buried my face in her collar of her coat. "Josh, it's all right," she soothed. The sirens were muffled as she squeezed me tightly.  
  
The man seemed to be nervously urgent, looking around at all of the people. He interrupted the hug, and made me turn to look at him. The woman whispered his name but he held up his finger to stop her from speaking. "Josh, I want you to tell me this," he said seriously, putting his hand on my forehead and pushing back my hair again. "Where's Joanie? Do you know where she is?"  
  
I burst into tears again. The man screamed out a curse, and ran to the firemen, while the woman's face went white. I couldn't stop crying. The sirens matched the pitch of my wails as I cried and cried. I tried to talk, but I couldn't get the words out. On the third try, I finally succeeded. "Mommy, Joanie's still inside," I sobbed.  
  
With a jolt I came back to the real world. I suddenly knew exactly where I was. I was at Rosslyn, still lying on the sidewalk. I think that Sam and Toby were there, but I know CJ was there. She towered over the paramedics. I made eye-contact with her, and I saw the fear and worry in her eyes. That made my heart start to pound.  
  
What was wrong with me? Why was I still here? What was so bad that CJ couldn't tell me what was going on? I knew it had been shot, but it wasn't that serious...was it? I tried to maintain eye-contact for as long as possible, but I could feel my grip on reality slipping once more...slipping...gone.  
  
I couldn't tell for certain how long I was out, but when I woke up they had me on the stretcher and they were loading me in the ambulance. Sirens were wailing, lights were flashing, people were screaming. The events were wildly unfocused to a numb brain, and the screams, fires, sirens, voices and lights just blurred together in a crescendo of noise and confusion that was completely unacceptable, even to me. I had spent time in a lot of chaos. But nothing like this. I just wanted it to stop. Kill me, save me, knock me unconscious, just make it stop. The fire, the gun, the sirens, Joanie...make it stop.  
  
An oxygen mask was over my face, but it didn't really help with my breathing. Evidently the morphine drip wasn't it because the pain was still there. Instead of the regularly paced sharp stabbing, there was now a constant feeling like someone was scratching out my intestines. It was an overwhelming pain, but I could not pass out again. I wasn't that lucky. I had to stay awake in the shambles of reality, drifting in and out of recognizing where and I was, and being delirious.  
  
I glanced over to my right. There was a person sitting on the small seat. He was trying to stay out of the way of the paramedics, and not doing a very good job. He looked oddly familiar. I searched around in my memory while staring intently at him. The brown hair, blue eyes, strong jaw...all of that was ringing a bell. He looked into my eyes with a great deal of concern. "Josh?" he asked me. The voice sold it for me. I now knew exactly who he was.  
  
"Sam," I tried to say, but the oxygen mask stopped me from saying much of anything. If anything at all came out, it would have been a garbled mess of random syabbles. Sam was quite obviously very concerned.  
  
"Josh, we're in the ambulance; we're going to the hospital," Sam said. "You just need to relax. Toby and CJ are in the car behind us. Everything's going to be all right, you just need to relax."  
  
If I hadn't been so weak, and if I hadn't had all these tubes sticking out of me, I swear I would have strangled him. I had a very painful bullet in me, and he wanted me to relax? I wanted to say something incredibly sarcastic and biting, but was stopped by the fact that there was an oxygen mask over my face. It's probably a good thing too. I might have said some things that I would live to regret. But then again, maybe not. maybe I wouldn't live at all.  
  
I was thinking this rather depressing thought when it happened. I felt myself sliding, except I knew that I wasn't moving. It was just my mind that was spiraling downwards. Sam saw this, and he knew that something was wrong. "Josh!" he cried out. "Josh, don't do this! Just stay right here!" But his voice was changing, becoming deeper and sounding older. My surroundings were changing too. Instead of the brightly lit ambulance interior, I was in a dimly lit bullpen. "Josh!" Sam cried out again, except it wasn't him calling my name anymore.  
  
"Josh?" I started, and turned away from my computer. Senator Hoynes was standing behind me, and looking very patronizingly at me. I stood up, feeling the heat on the back of my neck that meant that I was deeply embarrassed.  
  
"Senator Hoynes," I said, hating the tone that crept into my voice. It was a creeping, subservient tone that I loathed. It appeared whenever he looked at me. He was arguably the most powerful man in the Democratic party, and the favorite for nomination at the National Convention. So the tone kept creeping into my voice that said: "Please, please notice me. I'll do anything for you if you let me lick your shoes." I hated that tone.  
  
"Are you having some sort of trouble?" he asked. I turned to see what he was talking about. He was gazing at the devil machine, more commonly known to most of the population as a computer.  
  
"Yes sir," I said. "It's locked up, and I can't access any of the things that I need." Argh! The Tone! The Tone!  
  
"Let's see if we can't get that fixed," he said. "Barbara!" a random woman came over. "See if you can get Josh's computer set to rights." She leaned over and tapped a few keys, and the computer was back to order again. And I was left with the possible future President of the United States looking like an incredible jackass. It was not my finest moment.  
  
"Sorry about that sir," I said, sticking my hands into my pockets. "I'm just not very good with computers." Must...get...Tone...out...voice....Damn Tone! Get out!  
  
"I actually came down here for a specific reason," he said. "Take a walk with me." As we walked down the hall, he started to talk to me. "I've always held you in very high regard Josh. You helped me to get where I am today. I'm coming to you with a job offer. Not exactly an offer, but a promotion." He waited for me to say something, but I couldn't think of anything remarkably impressive to say. Hoynes continued.  
  
"Josh, this may or may not come as a surprise to you, but my name has come up in some discussion of a Presidential nominee. Now I remember the work you did for me in Texas, and I'd like to offer you this chance. Want to come help get a President elected?"  
  
"Yes sir," I stammered out. Hoynes smiled, and then acted like he was going to say something else. Instead his eyes widened in surprise.  
  
"Josh!" he cried out, except it wasn't his voice calling to me. With a jolt I came back to reality. The pain hit me again like a sledgehammer. The sirens wailed and horns blared.  
  
Shouldn't we be there by now? I wondered. Shouldn't we be at the hospital by now? What's taking so long. I turned my head over to the side and groaned at the pain that it caused. Sam looked relieved. "Josh, we're about a minute away from the hospital," he told me. "You just need to hold on for a minute," he said again.  
  
He said more things, but I couldn't understand them. My vision was holding two worlds at once. One of them was a meeting in a room with Senator Hoynes, the other was an absolute nightmare. Paramedics were pulling me out of the ambulance. Doors burst open and florescent lights were now overhead. I felt the same frustration in both situations. I couldn't make Hoynes listen to what I was saying, and I couldn't just get up and be all right.  
  
Toby and CJ's faces filled my vision. They were at Hoynes's meeting! But why were they there? Come to think of it, why was I there? I should be somewhere else...but where else should I go? Someone else came up to the side of the stretcher. Leo! The Secretary of Labor! But now I was even more confused. Worlds were blending together, I was angry, and I shouldn't be anywhere that I was right now. Only one thing was clear in my mind, and I made that point as they took the oxygen mask off.  
  
"I shouldn't be at this meeting," I said groggily. They had to understand! I shouldn't be here! I should be somewhere else...it was coming to me slowly.  
  
"I'm here Josh!" Sam called as he ran up beside me. I muttered a few more words. Sam must have understood them, because I sure didn't. "No, Josh, it's all right," he said to me. "You came and got me, remember?"  
  
"Senator," I mumbled out. "I need to get to New Hampshire!" I cried out in a burst of understanding. I tried to get up, but the nurses pushed me back down. Toby, CJ, Sam, and Leo tried to say some more things to me, but I either couldn't hear them, or couldn't understand them.  
  
They lifted me up onto a bed. Machines beeped and buzzed around me, and a white mist obscured my vision. The doctors talked to me while they put an IV in and put some breathing tubes in my nose.  
  
"Josh, the bullet collapsed your lung; I'm going to put in a tube to re-expand it." I could hear a heartbeat coming in stronger and louder, but the beats were becoming more regular and spaced out at larger intervals. It was echoing in my ears, along with the doctor's remarks. A collapsed lung? That was serious wasn't it....wasn't it? A vague hint of worry and fear crept into my brain about my lung. And then I was gone. 


	6. President Bartlet1

A/N: Yet another one of my pointless author notes in the making right here. To all the people who read these, kudos, because they must be incredibly boring. Glad you liked C.J. and Josh. Ah...Josh and his docile tone. Unfortunately, that's the last we're going to be inside of Josh's mind for a while. Darn. Thanks for your support again as I grovel in front of you.  
  
And now...for all of you who asked for it (Shadowesque13, you know who you are!) a President Bartlet chapter!  
  
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President Jed Barlet's POV  
  
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I probably shouldn't have worked the rope-line that night. If I hadn't then everything would have been all right, and I would have been settling down to my softball game. But I had to work the rope-line. Of course, none of this self-blame was going through my head at the moment. I had just gotten shot at. But right now I was back in the car with Ron and a few other guys. Worry was eating me up. Was Zoey all right? Was Leo all right? Were Josh, Sam, Toby, and CJ all right? Was Charlie all right? Were any members of the crowd killed back there? Sometimes I hate my job. It has too much responsibility in it.  
  
When the shots were fired, the Secret Service converged on me. I was slightly confused as to what was going on. I knew that shots were being fired, but my brain wasn't quick enough to grasp the enormity of what was happening. They pulled me backwards into the car. At the time, I might have felt a tiny bite of pain, but I didn't notice it. No, the pain didn't set in until much later. It was the panic that I found to be the major emotion.  
  
Where was Zoey? When could I talk to her? I demanded to know this from Ron. Normally, I try to be very civil to Ron Butterfield and the rest of the Secret Service agents. After all, its their job to protect me and my family with their lives. But my little girl had just been shot at? Didn't these people get it? I had to talk to Zoey!  
  
The sirens of the hastily assembled motorcade rang out as I argued with Ron. "Is Zoey all right? Get her again."  
  
"She wasn't hit sir," Ron began to say, but I interrupted him.  
  
"Get her on the radio right now!" I demanded. This was my family damn it! No one messes with my family!  
  
"Sir, she can't talk on the radio," Ron said with an infinitely patient look on his face.  
  
"Why can't she talk?" I asked in sudden confusion. The radios that the Secret Service used were secure, private lines. No one could hack into them. Why couldn't I talk to Zoey?  
  
"She's vomiting in the back of the car sir," Ron said with the patient look again. I turned around to look at the limousine behind us. My baby was throwing up and I couldn't comfort her? Never mind that Abbey was better for the vomiting of our children; I couldn't even see my youngest daughter? What good was being President if you couldn't protect your own family? "It happens sir," Ron explained.  
  
"Why is she vomiting?" I asked. The concern for Zoey had pumped up the adrenaline in my body once more. That was the slight coppery taste I had in the back of my throat. It was the adrenaline.  
  
"It happens sir," Ron said once more. "She might be in shock; she might've gotten an elbow in the stomach-"  
  
"Is Gina with her?" I interrupted him yet again. Gina had truly been a good find. She had alerted us all, and saved Zoey's life, if not more.  
  
"Gina put her in the car-"  
  
"She's not with her?" I clarified.  
  
"She's got two other agents in the car sir, she's got Mike and Fred. They're gonna have her back at the White House-"  
  
"Why isn't Gina in the car with her?" I demanded. I know that it was rude to interrupt, and my father would've slapped me up and down Main Street for interrupting so many times, but I couldn't help it. When it's your children that's under fire you'll understand. The only other time I had felt this concerned about my family was when Elizabeth called me to tell me about Annie getting the Raggedy Ann doll with the knife stuck through its throat.  
  
"Gina put Zoey in the car, and then stayed behind to wait for the ID agent. Mr. President, please." Ron's voice carried the slightest hint of begging in it. It was this tone that finally convinced me to settle down and wait until we got to the White House to talk to my daughter.  
  
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself down. The copper taste was becoming more pronounced. I should calm down. Abbey would have my head if she found out that I was getting worked up like this. "Is anyone dead back there?" I asked in a defeated tone, slumping up against the seat. It's horrible to feel that helpless. I panted. There was starting to be a bit of pain now. Maybe Ron or one of the other guys had bruised something when they put me in the car.  
  
"We don't know. We don't think so." Ron moved his hand, and I saw that it was clumsily wrapped with a white bandage. Also that blood was leaking out of it.  
  
"What happened your hand?" I asked, thought the answer was fairly obvious. A wave of gratitude swept over me. He had gotten shot to save me! It's wonderful to have people who are willing to do that for you. I think he gets paid to do that, but that's beside the point.  
  
"I got hit," he said. Amazingly, there was irritation in the way that he said that. He was angry at himself because he got shot? Unbelievable.  
  
"Oh God," I moaned. "Coop, turn around!" I ordered. "We gotta go to the hospital!" Ron tried to argue with me. "We're going to the hospital!" I snapped. There was no way that he was going to sit around and bleed while I was checked over at the White House. Self-sacrificing is one thing, but outright stupidity is another.  
  
"I have to put you inside the White House Mr. President. This isn't something we discuss," he said firmly. Irritation blazed within me into one of my irrational angers that Abbey was always talking about. To hell with procedure! Procedure said that right now I should be at home, in bed, watching my damn softball game! Obviously, there was no procedure tonight!  
  
"This is-my daughter is throwing up in the car behind us. You're losing blood by the liter, not to mention how many broken bones you've got in your hand," it was getting minorly difficult to breathe and the coppery taste was so strong that I could almost spit it out, "but let's make sure I'm tucked in bed before we-"  
  
"Mr. President?" Ron interrupted with sudden concern. He yanked my head forward and started patting me down. Something wet dribbled out of my mouth. He felt around my side where the pain was, and then brought his hand back. It was red with blood. So I'd been shot! That was the reason for the pain! "GW! Move! Move! Move!" Ron roared.  
  
The limo spun in the opposite direction and took off down the road again. The rest of the ride was a big blur in my mind. Ron kept on reassuring me that everything was going to be all right. He called the hospital and talked to some nurse. I was feeling cranky enough to yell something at her, but I didn't. I found that once you knew about the pain, the pain became more...well...painful. I just sat with my head against the back seat and tried to focus on what Ron was saying, although it didn't make much sense. When we got to the emergency room the doctors hustled me onto a stretcher and into the doors. Everything was moving incredibly fast. I guess that's one upside to being President. You get into the emergency room very quickly. Like Josh said, people will be unhappy when they find out that someone killed the President. The doctors were talking above me.  
  
"He's been shot in the abdomen; visible entry and exit wounds," one said. Another was shouting out my blood pressure and pulse. The main doctor came.  
  
"Mr. President, I'm Dr. Keller, I'm the main trauma surgeon on duty. The exit wound is a good indication, we like your vital signs," he said in an annoying chirpy voice. I stared daggers at him.  
  
"I swear to God that if I don't speak to my daughter in the five minutes I'm going to attack someone," I growled as they wheeled me down the hall.  
  
"She's on her way," Ron said. he was walking behind us and holding his hand up in the air to help the blood clot. Amazingly, no one had noticed this fact.  
  
"This guy's got about seven broken bones in his hand, if someone wants to give him an aspirin or something," I said grumpily. I spent over a year giving orders. I'm used to be sarcastic, grumpy and giving orders. Getting shot wasn't going to change that.  
  
They wheeled me into the pre-op room. "We're just going to get you stabilized," one of the doctors informed. Important concerns came to my mind.  
  
"I need you to wait as long as possible before giving me the anesthesia," I said, hoping that these people would listen to me. Doctors are notoriously bad at listening to the concerns of my patients. At least the doctors that I've come into contact with, which has mainly been Abbey. "I need to speak to Leo McGarry before you give me the anesthesia," I said again.  
  
"He's on his way as well sir." Ron is so helpful. And no one's helped his hand yet.  
  
"I need to ask you a few questions sir," one of the nurses said. "Do you have any medical conditions?"  
  
My heart froze. I couldn't tell the room full of people that I had MS, but I couldn't keep it a secret either. Where was Abbey when you needed her? I decided to stall for time.  
  
"Well...I've been shot," I said weakly. I tried to pass the statement off with a winning smile.  
  
The nurse was not amused. 


	7. Donna Moss1

A/N: And here I go making another one of my author's notes. Feel free to ignore this if you wish. It really has no point here. Except I would just like to say one thing about President Bartlet's chapter. I didn't write out any additional information about that scene because Aaron Sorkin really didn't leave much room. There will be more scenes that we didn't see in ITSOTG, but for now, we're going to have to be left with that. But he will have more scenes in which he says original information! I just thought that you might like an explanation for that. And I also just created an excuse. ;)  
  
Anyway. Here's the next chapter. Oh, and I also wrote to my representative, and he sent me a free copy of the Constitution (or probably someone at his office did!)! I know, I'm an absolute loser. But it has been fun looking up the articles in the Constitution when they mention them on the West Wing.  
  
Disclaimer: Does the actual West Wing own any parts of the show? They probably own more than I do.  
  
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Donna Moss's POV  
  
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---"Donna!" The shout was sudden and unexpected. And it made my hands crash down on the computer in sudden shock. A random mass of letters and punctuation appeared in the report that I was typing for Josh. "Donna!" Speak of the devil. Literally.  
  
I wearily got up from my desk and walked to the door of his office. I leaned against the doorway and watched him. He looked up from his desk and saw me. "Donna, tell me something," he said, opening a thin blue folder. "I have a meeting regarding the national debt in thirty minutes. Right now I am supposed to be reading a report on the national debt. The problem is that I don't have a report on the national debt!" he suddenly yelled.  
  
"Joshua, you shouldn't yell," I remarked calmly. This stopped him right in his tracks. "Now if you'll settle down and talk like a calm and rational person, I will go and get your report." I walked out of his office to go and get the stupid report. This is how you have to handle people like Josh. You have to handle them firmly and with a healthy dose of good-temper and humor. I opened the file cabinet and flicked through a few folders until I found the report on the national debt. "See?" I muttered to myself. "All you have to do is look around a bit, and then you find it." Josh is too tightly wound. He'll die of a heart attack before he reaches forty. I walked back to Josh's office and slapped the report down on his desk. "There's your report," I said cheerily.  
  
"Thanks," he mumbled, picking it up and immersing himself in the report.  
  
"Do you need anything else?  
  
"No."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you want me to get you a cookie?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Do you want me to get out."  
  
"Yes."  
  
I closed the door behind me and walked out to my desk. I stared at the softly glowing computer screen for a few seconds. The random letters were still there. I sighed and deleted the entire line and started over. Within thirty seconds I was completely absorbed in my work. All the regular noises of the bullpen faded away. There was just me, the computer's whirr and the quiet clacking of ten-fingered typing. It was a very peaceful situation for a while. For a while.  
  
"Donna!" I slammed my head onto the desk. I was so close to getting this done. So close! "Donna!" I brought my head up to glare at anyone who might be watching me. It was right then that I noticed something extraordinary. The bullpen was empty. It wasn't empty like it was 5:15 on a Friday evening with a few people running around trying to tie things up. It was empty like it was 1:30 on Saturday morning. There was no one in the bullpen. I was completely alone. Not only was I alone in the bullpen, but there was no one in the halls. There was no one in the Communications bullpen, or in the press room, or in the Oval Office. I was totally alone in the West Wing, if not the White House.  
  
"Donnatella Moss!" Well, not totally alone. I stood up and took a small step towards Josh's office. I was slightly freaked out. I'd always wished for total and absolute quiet, but I'd never really thought about it. The chaos and insanity of the bullpen had been replaced by a tomb-like silence. And it was pretty scary.  
  
I looked at Josh's polished wooden door, and that was when I got really scared. His door seemed to rush at me and everything else pulled away. It left me shaken and not knowing where I was. By now I was absolutely terrified. I took two tiny steps forward but the door didn't seem to be getting any closer.  
  
Josh called out again. "Donna!" But this yell lacked the usual annoyance and command. Instead of those two emotions, this yell had a degree of urgency, fear, and pleading in it. "Donna!"  
  
"I'm coming!" I tried to call, but it came out as a whisper. "Josh!"  
  
"Donna!" ---  
  
"Donna?" Someone was shaking my shoulder. "Donna!" I started awake and sat straight up. My face had been buried in the pillows on the couch in my apartment that I shared with my roommate Patricia. And speaking of Patty, she was the one that had woken me up. "Are you all right?"  
  
"Yeah," I said, sweeping a few errant strands of hair out of my eyes. "Yeah, I just had a dream. Are you going out?" I asked, watching her snap on a bracelet.  
  
"I'm going out with Drew tonight and I shouldn't be back until late," she said, throwing on a light windbreaker. "I just stopped here for a few things before I go. Listen, are you going to be okay here?"  
  
"Yeah, Josh let me go early tonight," I said, curling my legs up on the couch. "You and Drew go and have a good time. I'll be fine here by myself. I've got some hot chocolate, I'll be fine," I said, giving her my brightest and cheeriest Donna smile.  
  
She walked to the door and then turned back. "Oh Donna?" she called out in a singsong voice. "You were calling out a name in your sleep. You kept calling out Josh. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but when you start dreaming about a guy, that's when it becomes serious."  
  
She grinned like the Cheshire Cat and swept out of the door. "Patricia!" I wailed. And I was left alone in the apartment, incredibly confused. Let's just say that the dream upset me just a little bit. I got up, changed into a pair of sweats, and took off my makeup. I got my hot chocolate and sat down to have myself a serious think.  
  
Josh and I didn't have a relationship. Well, we actually did, but not a romantic one. He was my boss, and I was his assistant (or the Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff, depending on how you looked at it). I am deeply attached to Josh, but it's not really more attached than I am to anyone else on the staff. I guess that Josh and I are like Margaret and Leo. You can't imagine one without the other. The just fit. Like puzzle pieces.  
  
I finished the hot chocolate and glanced at the VCR clock. It was 10:23. I'd normally just be getting out of the West Wing. Josh had told me to go home right before he went in the President's motorcade to Rosslyn.  
  
"Are you sure?" I asked, sticking some papers in a folder and then wheeling over to the file cabinet. I put the folder in its spot, slammed the cabinet shut, and then turned my chair around to face him. He put on his suit coat and leaned up against the doorway.  
  
"Yeah, there's not going to be any calls coming in because they know that no one's going to be here. If something comes up, let someone else take care of it. Listen, we get back from this thing, and everyone's going home anyway. You should go home, get some rest."  
  
I stood up and smiled perkily. "Well, you don't have to tell me twice," I said sweetly as I walked into his office and put a few papers down on his desk.  
  
Josh turned around and eyed me skeptically. "Well...actually I did," he said. He put on his patented Josh smirk. It's the smirk he has whenever he wins and someone else loses. It's his victory smirk. He turned and walked away down the hall.  
  
"Shut up," I called after him as he walked down the hall. He gave me a backwards wave to tell me goodbye.  
  
That had been almost two hours ago. and for the first time in a long time I had nothing to do. I was sitting at home with no reports to write or memos to draft. I was totally cut off from the White House. And it felt pretty good. I glanced at the tape rack. I felt like a movie; something with a hot guy in it.  
  
I got up and put my mug in the sink and then searched through the cabinets. I wanted popcorn. I wanted buttery, fattening popcorn. I had just found my packet and put it in the microwave when the phone rang. I glared at the phone. I'd experienced this before. Zimbabwe had probably attacked some other country, and someone thought that I could really help sort out this national disaster. Josh loved doing this to me.  
  
"You know, there's no legal obligation that you have," I said to myself. "No law says that you have to pick up that phone."  
  
The phone rang once more. I sighed angrily and walked over. I picked the phone up and held it against my ear. "Hello?" I asked, fully prepared to hear Josh's voice on the other end. The microwave buzzed. I took my popcorn out and struggled to open it.  
  
"Donna, it's Charlie. Are you watching your TV?"  
  
"No," I said, confused as to why Charlie was calling, and not Josh. "What's wrong?"  
  
"Just turn it on. Channel 5." I fumbled with the popcorn, the phone, and the remote. There was a tense silence on the other end. I finally managed to turn on the TV, and watched as the anchorman's face filled the screen.  
  
"In our continuing coverage on events in Rosslyn tonight, we have reports that President Bartlet was hit in the side with a bullet. Reports are sketchy, but we think that he is being taken to George Washington Hospital-" I wrenched violently and the popcorn bag burst open, spilling popcorn all over the clean kitchen floor.  
  
"The President just got to GW," Charlie said. I nodded, even though I knew that he couldn't see me. I was running back to my bedroom. "Mrs. Landingham and Margaret are on their way. Margaret said that we should call you and tell you to come to the hospital. She's calling Bonnie and Ginger and telling them to get the Communication's office up and running."  
  
While he was talking I'd already thrown off my sweats and put some clothes on. I hastily put my hair up in a ponytail. "Charlie," I asked, pausing in putting on my shoes, "is the President going to be all right? Was anyone else hit?"  
  
He paused and didn't answer for a few seconds. "We don't know anything yet. Donna? You should probably hurry." He hung up. I threw the phone on the bed and ran out of the apartment, popcorn crunching under my shoes as I went. 


	8. Leo McGarry1

A/N: Thank you for saying that my author's notes are interesting to read. I feel like I have to have one. Glad that you liked Donna. I just figured that—Hey. She's wearing different clothes in ISOTG than in WKODHIB, so who's to say she didn't go home and change clothes. I was a little anxious about doing the dream sequence because I was afraid that it would seem a little melodramatic, but it worked. Glad to hear that you liked the dream.  
  
Disclaimer: Maybe some day I'll work in the actual West Wing. But I still won't own the show.  
  
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Leo McGarry's POV  
  
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It's funny how fast things can change. The course of a day, hell, the course of a life can change in the fraction of a second. Take Jed Bartlet for example. The second that his life changed was when I came to his house one night with the craziest idea I had ever had, opened my mouth and said "Jed, let's run for President." Sam Seabourne's life changed forever when Josh Lyman showed up at his law firm, looking like a maniacal, homicidal crazy person. Which isn't that far from the truth I suppose. But I digress. My point is that people's lives change in the fraction of a second. That's all the time it takes the pull the trigger on a gun.  
  
The day had gotten off to a calamitous start, but I thought that we were finally smoothing it out. We'd gotten the pilot back to friendly territory, Columbia was coming back to the ground, and the FEC nominations were going to sail by. There were still lots of Republicans in Washington, but that was another day's fight. For now I was perfectly happy to wave to the ecstatic crowd. I would be back at the office soon: just me, Margaret, and two feet of briefing memos. Ah, the bliss of working for the government.  
  
When I heard the first gunshot, my mind shot back to the war. I almost reached for my gun, and then realized where I was, and who I was. I was Leo McGarry, White House Chief of Staff, and I was at a Town Hall meeting in Rosslyn Virginia. I wasn't a soldier, and I wasn't in the war. I suddenly felt very vulnerable. I had no way to defend myself, and people were shooting at me. Everyone felt quite vulnerable and unprotected.  
  
People began screaming and shoving. The crowd started jumping over the barriers. The Secret Service had their hands full with just the crowd. Absolute panic was the mindset of everyone there. I was looking around, trying to see where everyone was. Hands were flying in front of my face, narrowly missing hitting me. I joined in the blatant display of mob mentality, pushing and shoving everyone who got near me.  
  
I felt a grip of iron encircle my upper arm, and then I was down. A Secret Service agent rested their weight on me, effectively immobilizing me. "Stay down Mr. McGarry," he yelled to me. I couldn't see that much from my vantage point. I just saw a lot of feet moving around. The frantic blasts of gunfire suddenly stopped. There were a few short blasts, and then the absolute quiet came. It was the calm after the storm. I could almost hear my breath echoing in the small plaza.  
  
After a few minutes, the Secret Service agent let me get up. "Are you all right Mr. McGarry?" he asked me. Without waiting for an answer, he sprinted away. The motorcade was assembling. I tried to walk over and see how Jed and Zoey were, but before I could make it there the cars pulled away. The lights of the police cars made me blink in sudden discomfort. The cars left, and I was standing alone in the midst of great confusion.  
  
The silence had been replaced by a bunch of screams and wails. People were crying out for help. I wondered where the ambulances were. Shouldn't they be coming soon? We had been shot at, we had injuries, where were the ambulances? I had just finished thinking this when the police cars and ambulances began to flood in. I moved out of the way and watched as people started coming with their bruises and cuts. They'd probably gotten more hurt in their panic than by the assassin's bullets. I put my hands in my pockets and felt the slight tremble of the fingers.  
  
"I want a drink," I thought, walking over to the head of the long train of ambulances. "I need a drink." A Secret Service agent was standing talking to several other agents. He obviously recognized me because he didn't tell me to go away.  
  
"What happened?" I asked him. "Did we get the shooters?"  
  
"The shooters are dead," he told me, and then looked behind me. "Canvas the entire area! No one leaves here unless they have a White House staffer's tag!" he called to one of the agents behind him.  
  
I nodded, and walked away. "I need a drink," I thought to myself. The trembling became more. I knew this feeling. It was hard to fight, and came on at times of stress. I looked around for the other members of senior staff to take my mind off the longing for scotch. I couldn't see anyone right off the bat. That got me more worried than the shooting itself did. Don't get me wrong, the shooting was terrifying, but what happened during and after was just as bad as the bullets. It's a horrible, terrible thing not to know how the people you care for are during a crisis. And no matter how much they irk me, I do deeply care for Josh, CJ, Sam, and Toby. Sometimes it's hard, but I do care for them. We're like family. And there is no way that we could have gotten where we are right now if we didn't love each other like family.  
  
"Leo!" I turned around to see Sam jogging towards me. I looked at him in shock. He looked like he had just come out of the Oval Office. Sure, his suit was a little rumpled, and his hair was mussed, but other than that he looked fine. Only Sam could come out of a murder attempt looking like he came out of work instead. There's something quite scary about him.  
  
"Sam are you all right?" I asked him. It's a really stupid question. Of course he wasn't mentally all right, and physically, he was fine.  
  
"Yeah, I'm all right," he said, giving me the once-over. "You seem all right," he added.  
  
"I'm fine," I said, shaking the question off. "Do you know how the President is? Were any of our people hit?"  
  
"I don't think that any person here was hit. CJ got her head pretty banged up," he said. He kept on glancing around nervously like he was looking for snipers. "I've seen Charlie and Toby; I haven't talked to them yet. As far as the President and Zoey, I know as much as you do. The motorcade pulled out a little while ago. We haven't had any contact since then."  
  
"All right," I said, nodding my head. "All right. Sam turned around and started to walk away. I thought for a second, and then a new concern hit me. "Sam!" I called after him. He turned back. "You didn't say anything about Josh." He looked at me in confusion. "When you said that you'd seen everyone, you didn't mention Josh."  
  
"I haven't seen him yet," Sam said. His eyes might have shown an additional flicker of concern, but it wasn't anything immense. "He's around." We stood together for a few short seconds. Sam and I were unique in the fact that we had a small cocoon of sanity. In the midst of great madness, we were probably the two calmest people. The adrenaline was running out of me, leaving me with an empty, tired feeling.  
  
"All right," I said, feeling marginally better. Sam clapped me on the shoulder and started to walk away. "Sam?" I paused for a moment, pondering whether or not I should say what I was thinking. "I'm glad you're all right." He smiled and walked away. I probably shouldn't have said that. At the time, it was the right thing to say, but it was too sentimental. Much too sentimental for Sam.  
  
I had nothing to do. Usually I am incredibly overworked with at least 92 things to do at any one minute. But I was now stuck with nothing to do. It was slightly offputting. I couldn't do anything to help the paramedics, and I couldn't find another member of the staff to talk to. It made me feel very lonely.  
  
I looked around, and then I saw Charlie. "Charlie!" I called, breaking into a fast walk. "Charlie, you okay?"  
  
"Yeah," he said. Charlie was obviously shaken up. He didn't have his normal docile tone that he had whenever he was speaking to me, or to Jed. He shook his head and came back to himself. "Do you want a car?"  
  
"If you could get one, then I'd like that," I said, glancing around. The screams had subsided, and the crowd was calming down and becoming tamer. The frenzied feeling of action and confusion was still there, but I was no longer a part of it. I was standing alone, nearly brushing the great madness of the scene, but so far outside of it at the same time. It made me feel so different from the crowd and from my coworkers. But I suppose that it made sense. I'm a soldier: I'm used to the frenzy and terror of battle, and the explosions of gunfire. The shooting didn't phase me that much. I thought that everyone was fine, so all that remained was to go back to the White House, head to the Situation Room, and find out who shot at us and how we could find them. Charlie came jogging back.  
  
"Leo, I got you a car," He said in the breathless pant that everyone seemed to be using. "I think that Josh is already in there, or is getting in. You're going back to the White House."  
  
"Thanks Charlie," I said, clapping him on the shoulder. I climbed into the car, expecting to see Josh. Instead, I saw Bob Shannahan.  
  
"Leo," he said, shaking my hand warmly. Despite my surprise at seeing him there I managed to return his greeting. "Thank God you're all right."  
  
"The same here," I said, settling back into the seat. "From what I could hear, everyone's all right. And I don't think that anyone in the crowd was hit."  
  
Shannahan nodded, and slumped back into the seat. He had a wild look in his eyes. It was slowly fading, but the panic he felt was still present in his eyes. There was silence for a heartbeat, and then he spoke again. "Leo, how can you be calm?" he asked hoarsely. "With all the world falling down around you, you're still perfectly calm?"  
  
"You obviously haven't seen Sam," I thought to myself. "You think that my relative tranquillity is something, then imagine how you're going to feel about a person who can come out a shooting with perfect hair."  
  
"Leo?" Shannahan prompted.  
  
I thought about my answer before giving it. Why was I so calm? My first answer came to my head almost immediately. I was used to being shot at, I was used to hearing gunshots. I was a former soldier, I didn't give into urges to panic. But my second thought was the right one. I was calm because I needed to be. Everyone else, Josh, Sam, Toby, CJ, hell, even Jed—they were going nuts. Someone needed to be calm. I was calm so that they didn't have to be. But I didn't say that. I didn't even say my first thought.  
  
I shook my head and turned to him. "Because I am," I said simply. This effectively ended our short conversation. I've become an expert over the years at ending conversations abruptly. It's a special talent.  
  
I waited for us to get back in Washington. We took a turn, and my cell phone rang. "Damn it," I said angrily. Shannahan looked at me curiously. "Who the hell is calling?" I took the phone out, prepared to scream and rant at whoever was on the other end.  
  
"What?" I snapped into the phone. There was static crackling on the other end and there were sirens in the back round. Either someone still at the meeting, or POTUS. Now I felt bad that I had yelled.  
  
"Leo!" I searched my memory for that voice, and came up with a name. Ron Butterfield, head of the President's Secret Service detail. I unconsciously gripped the phone tighter. Why was Ron calling instead of the President? The adrenaline of the shooting and the immediate aftermath started to creep into my fingers. I needed a drink...  
  
"Ron?" I shouted into the phone. Shannahan was looking at me with an insane energy. "Ron, what's wrong?" I demanded. I was gripping the phone so tightly that my knuckles were white.  
  
"Leo, we're going to the hospital," Ron said. he had his commanding voice on. This was the voice that told people that they were under arrest, and to put their hands in the air. This was the take-charge voice. The commanding voice should have made me feel better. It didn't.  
  
"Ron, what happened? Is the President all right?" I yelled into the phone.  
  
"Leo, we're almost at GW," Ron said. "The President was hit in the side. We're going to the hospital to see how bad it is." He hung up.  
  
"Oh God," I said into the phone. "Turn us around!" I bellowed to the driver. He didn't question my order. He just spun the car around. "GW!" I snapped. Shannahan gripped my arm so tight that it was painful.  
  
"The President was hit," I said, finally taking the phone away from my ear. My heart froze when I said those words. Saying them aloud just made them seem so hopeless. The memories that I had of the shooting started coming back to me. They were disjointed and unconnected. Coming out of the building, the gunshots, the sirens, and the screaming. That was all that I could really remember.  
  
"Can we go any faster?" I bellowed.  
  
"We're pushing 70 right now," he called back to me. Thank goodness that the streets were cleared for this. We could as fast as we wanted. Within another few moments we were at the hospital. I left Shannahan in the car and sprinted into the hospital. I looked around, and then saw good deal of black suits standing outside of a room. Ah. There's the President.  
  
I ran towards the pre-op room to be stopped by a nurse. "Sir, you can't go back there," she said, grabbing my arm. "They're getting ready to go into operation. You aren't allowed in the room!" she said urgently as I tried to break away from her.  
  
"I'm Leo McGarry; I'm the White House Chief of Staff, and the President is asking for me," I said, flashing my ID. She immediately let go of my arm and let me burst into the room. The first thing I saw was my old friend Jed lying on a hospital bed with blood on his side. The next thing I saw was Zoey standing at the foot of the bed. She looked absolutely terrified. "How you doing kid?" I asked her.  
  
"I'm fine," she said faintly. This told me that she was not fine. Zoey hated when I called her kid. But I couldn't help it. I gave all the Bartlet girls nicknames. Elizabeth was Liz, Eleanor was Ellie, and Zoey was kid. It was just the way things were.  
  
"She booted all over the back of the car; you know they're going to bill me for that," Jed said, trying to lighten the mood. It failed monumentally, but it did make at least me feel better. If he was telling bad jokes, he couldn't be seriously hurt-right? "Honey, do me a favor would you?"  
  
"Yeah, I'll go step outside. I'll wait for Mom," Zoey said, her eyes still wide with terror.  
  
"Tell her not to frighten the doctors," he called after her. Knowing Abbey, she would frighten the doctors, and she would do it a lot. "I'll see you in a couple of hours." I walked over to the side of the bed. Jed slipped from 'caring father' mode into 'Presidential' mode. "Anyone dead back there?"  
  
"The two shooters, they got them through the window," I answered, while adding silently, "May they rot in Hell." Jed took a deep breath. Doctors rushed around the bed, doing all of their doctor duties.  
  
"Anybody in the crowd?"  
  
"A few injuries, they're coming now."  
  
"What about our people?"  
  
"CJ hit her head on the ground, but other than that..." I let my voice trail off. Was that a twinge of concern in my voice? Over what? The President looked like he was going to be fine, and no one was hurt badly. Just let the President be all right.  
  
"Get the Cabinet together, and the Security Council," he said in a weak voice. "Tell Jerome to suspend trading on the Stock Exchange." Amazing that he had a gunshot wound, yet we're talking about work. No one else had jobs like we do. "Do we know who the shooters were?"  
  
"No," I answered simply. They're dead. Does it really matter who they were? But it did matter. If we knew who they were, then we could know who sent them and why.  
  
"I'm going to be under anesthesia for a few hours," he said groggily. I nodded. "You know what that means?"  
  
"I'll talk to Abbey," I assured him. She had probably had already thought about this, but if it made Jed feel better, then what the hell.  
  
"Sir, it's time," one of the doctors said to me. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay beside my best friend. What kind of friend was I if I deserted him right when he needed me. We'd stuck beside each other through many things: booze, pills, MS, and a Presidential campaign. I had to leave his side now?  
  
"Hey come here," Jed motioned to me. I leant down because I thought that he wanted to whisper something in my ear. Instead he grabbed me and kissed me on the cheek. I looked down at the hospital bed, and the President of the United States was gone. Instead, there was Jed Bartlet, father of three daughters, grandfather, husband, and my oldest friend. "Everything's going to be okay," he told me.  
  
"I'll see you in a few hours Mr. President." I walked slowly out of the room. I walked into the waiting room. The first thing I saw was Abbey hugging Zoey. Then I saw the Doctor that had been with Jed. "Abbey, this is Dr. Keller," I told her with a significant look. She got the meaning behind it.  
  
"Yes, we spoke on the phone." They launched into a whole campaign of doctor language. I am an educated man, but I cannot understand doctor language, so I led Zoey into a small room that said "Private Room" on the door. This would be the best place for us to go.  
  
"How you doing?" I asked her seriously. Give the kid credit, she had guts. She nodded, and even tried to smile.  
  
"I'm fine," she said, her bravery not quite reaching her eyes. They were still wide and scared. I patted her on the arm.  
  
"Zoey, we've got good people at George Washington. They're doing everything they can. They honestly don't think that there's going to be any trouble now." She nodded again, and hugged herself.  
  
"Yeah, I know," she said faintly.  
  
"You want me to go?" I asked her. She nodded, and whispered something that I couldn't catch. I left the room and softly closed the door behind me. I was stuck in the waiting room with nothing to do. Like a writer on a movie set, is how Josh would describe my situation right now. A lot of Secret Service agents were standing in the waiting room, but one caught my eye. She was standing against the wall with a blank expression and her eyes wide. I walked over to her and leaned against the wall. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah," she said, turning around to fully face me. Now I recognized her. Gina Toscano, one of Zoey's agents. She had yelled.  
  
"Was there someone on the ground?"  
  
"There was a signal. I couldn't give a description." So that's why she was upset. Sirens wailed faintly behind us. The injuries must be coming here now.  
  
"Did they close the airports?"  
  
"And Union Station." She was quickly breaking down. "We've got troopers on the bridges, and 300 field agents on the ground, but I can't tell them what they're looking for." She was breaking out of her stoic agent role, and was letting her frustration shine through. The siren was closer now.  
  
"You got the girl in the car Gina."  
  
"It's right in front of my face." A buzzer sounded, and doctors and nurses burst through the doors. I turned around to see what was coming through the doors.  
  
"Gunshot wound, no exit!" one of them yelled. Genuine alarm and panic swept through me. I didn't think that any member of the crowd had been hurt that badly. I saw them wheeling the stretcher towards the doors. A member of the crowd would have been bad enough. But what was about to come through those doors was much worse.  
  
"It's Josh!" CJ yelled as she came in. She, Toby, and Charlie were running beside the stretcher. I looked into the stretcher and almost died. Josh was lying there, looking like he had already died. His blue shirt was ripped, exposing a hole that was spurting out blood in his chest. His hands were also bloody and his face was so confused.  
  
"Josh!" I yelled. "What happened?" I asked no one in particular.  
  
"We didn't see, he was behind us," Toby answered.  
  
"Josh, I'm here!" Sam called as Josh pulled off the oxygen mask. Josh said a bunch of mumbled words that I couldn't hear. It was horrible to see him like this. He was normally so alive, energetic, sarcastic, and funny. Now he was reduced to a delirious man on a stretcher. He wasn't even Josh anymore.  
  
They lifted him up on the pre-op table. First Jed, now Josh...my life, friends, and coworkers were disintegrating right in front of me. All I could think about was a few hours ago, the last time that I had really talked to Josh.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I...thought that you were going to hug me."  
  
"Boy, did you read that one wrong."  
  
And now he was dying. He had a collapsed lung and he was going into surgery. That was my son, and he was dying. My son had been shot by assassins. I was going to find the signal guy. I was going to talk to Ron, to Nancy, to Fitzwallace. I was going to talk to whomever I had to talk to, I was going to find the signal guy, and I was going to kill him.  
  
"Sir, you need to leave," one of the doctors said. CJ, Toby, Charlie, Sam, and I were ushered out of the hospital room. Sam kept his face pressed up against the glass. I knew the feeling. It was misery to watch Josh going through this, but you didn't want to turn your eyes away. I looked in the room. They had thrown a surgical blanket over him, and put a cap over his brown hair. They were giving him the anesthesia. I watched them fix machines to them, and saw the irregular beat of his heart on the monitor. They wheeled him into the operation room. I watched the doors swing open and closed as Josh went into surgery.  
  
I should have given him that hug. 


	9. Danny Concanon1

A/N: After a long break, I decided to come back and write out something. This chapter occurred to me at the dead of night, and I just decided to go with it. After all, Danny was at the event in Rosslyn. So why wouldn't he be at the shooting? Anyway. Here's the next chapter.  
  
Disclaimer: Can't think up something sarcastic. Not mine.  
  
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Danny Concanon's POV  
  
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My head really hurt. When CJ slaps you, you know it. The girl must work out or something because she's got quite a lot of force. So when the press was walking out behind the President, the main thing that I was thinking about was that my head hurt. I was also wondering what the deal was with the Columbia space shuttle. I'd called and given the science editor a heads-up, but I had no idea why. CJ isn't a real details person. That's one reason she's such a good press secretary. Although she is too friendly with the press.  
  
The press always walks behind the President. Public events, getting off Air Force One, or in the motorcade, the press always, always, walks behind the President. If I squinted I could just make out the President's head. People were cheering and waving support signs. I checked my watch. If absolutely nothing happened and the President only spent thirty minutes on the rope-line, then I might have just enough time to make my print deadline. The President was heading to the crowd. Maybe I should start writing on the bus.  
  
The press corps were almost down the steps when the gunshots started. Screams erupted from the crowd. I threw my body behind a concrete wall. Despite the fact that it was stupid, I poked my head up to look around. I'm a reporter, I can't help it. My instinct is to chart down the details. Most of the crowd and senior staffers were huddled down on the ground. The only people that were behind the closed gate were the members of the press corp. from what I could see of most of them, they had followed my example and were crouching behind walls. I was noting every single detail about this shooting.  
  
The limousine doors were closed, and I assumed that the President was inside. Police cars were having the crap shot out of them. As I watched, I saw one of the cars have its windows shot out. Secret Service agents were shooting at a sixth story office window. After a few seconds, theirs were the only shots that I heard. A few seconds later and those stopped also. I stayed down until I was sure that it was safe, and then I got up.  
  
There had been silence for a few short minutes. Now there were screams coming from every corner of the plaza. There were cries of anger, cries for help, and cries of pure, simple terror. People were confused. They had just been shot at, they wanted control. I went down some stairs, nothing several members of the press milling around, and a man slumped against a wall. The gate opened, and I walked into the plaza were the crowd was. Ambulances started to filter in, with their flashing lights and wailing sirens.  
  
"Well, that print deadline's blown then," I muttered to myself, looking at the chaos. My eyes darted up to the lit window that had the broken glass on it. I involuntarily shuddered at seeing the window. I deliberately turned my back on the gaping window and walked back up the steps. I passed Charlie, but didn't say anything. Bending down, I picked up my laptop bag. I checked to make sure that my laptop was all right. Something on the ground caught my attention. I bent down again to get a closer look.  
  
A bullet was embedded in the concrete. I dug around for a few seconds, and then came up with the bullet. It was small, only about an inch in length. It shone a dull copper-red. "Son of a bitch," I whispered to myself, running my fingers all over the metal bullet. I looked at the bullet for a few more seconds, and then carefully put the bullet back in its hole.  
  
I breathed deeply and stood up. My legs felt shaky, and my arms felt fatigued, like I had just finished an hour of kayaking. The scene was starting to calm down. The most serious injuries had been taken care of. The paramedics were dealing with mainly cuts and shaken up people now. I might still get a Pulitzer off of this experience I thought wildly to myself. It was horrible to think that I might get a benefit off of this, but once again, I couldn't help it.  
  
"Danny!" Steve called out. I looked at him with a little less animosity than I normally would have. He worked for the New York Times, and I worked for the Washington Post. We're competitors.  
  
"Hey Steve," I said, eyeing him carefully. He had a small scrape on his hand, but otherwise looked fine. "You all right?"  
  
"Yeah, some of the press corps were held back in the building. We just got out," he said. "I don't think you were so lucky."  
  
"Definitely not," I agreed. "I don't mean to sound rude, but what exactly did you come over here for Steve?"  
  
"I was just checking to see that you're all right," he defended himself. "And to see what you know."  
  
"As much as you do," I responded.  
  
"Thought so. I'll see you Danny."  
  
"Okay." Steve walked away. I turned around. People were starting to group off in clumps. They were crying and holding each other. Toby ran up the steps. I ignored him until I heard his voice raised in alarm. "I need help!" My head shot to the side, and I walked quickly to stand behind him. My heart shot to the roof of my mouth as I saw Josh's head hit the pavement.  
  
CJ screamed. "Josh!" I was ignored as Sam and CJ ran to Josh's side. As I edged to the side I could see the blood soaking through Josh's blue shirt. Paramedics surrounded Josh, but I still had a narrow view. I winced at the bloody mess on Josh's chest when they ripped open the shirt. When Josh coughed, a small river of blood came out of the gaping bullet wound. I watched until nausea was threatening to overtake me. When I could finally look, the paramedics had loaded Josh up on a stretcher and were shoving him into an ambulance. The lights flashed on, the sirens wailed, and the ambulance was gone.  
  
I took in a shaky breath and then let it out. I was feeling a bit more shaken up than I just had been. The entire White House, press corps included, had just been attacked. And I like Josh. He's a decent guy who's done me a few favors during the time that I've known him-given me a few tips, told me about CJ and goldfish, and treated me like a person instead of a reporter. And plus, when he screws up it's at least three column inches above the fold for me. So it disturbed me to see Josh shot and driven away in an ambulance.  
  
Charlie jumped into a car and drove away. I stared into space for a few minutes until I felt someone shake me on the shoulder. It was Steve. "Danny, they're gathering the press up," he told me. "We should be at the White House within the hour." I nodded, but didn't say anything. "Danny? Danny, what was that?" Steve gestured at the empty place where the ambulance had been.  
  
A wry laugh escaped my mouth. "That?" I gestured widely at the entire plaza where the shooting had taken place. "that was our news cycle for the next few days." I walked back, grabbed up my laptop bag from where I had dropped it. I kicked the place where the bullet had landed while Steve looked at me strangely. "Come on. Let's get in the van." 


	10. Charlie Young1

A/N: First off, let me apologize for the extremely long delay. There's actually a nice little story behind my not updating. See, I updated, and then I went on vacation to South Carolina (it was v. nice). Then I got back, just in time for school to start again. But there was more badness to come. The night before I had to go back to school, I was on the computer doing some last minute work that I needed to do (oops, forgot to do that one) and my computer wouldn't start up. So I have to use my laptop to type, and then use the library's internet access to upload. Whew. There's my long story, which is more of an excuse than anything else.

Nonnie: Wow, thank you for all your reviews! I feel loved. Rob Lowe has never had an ugly day in his life. The man was born with perfect hair. I love Josh's victory smirk! For some unknown reason, whenever Josh says something bigoted, elitist, and arrogant, I want to hug him. I should probably have that looked into.

Shadowesque13: Dannie's chapter just didn't turn out right. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I eventually ended up pulling a Sam, complete with fist-banging.

Lisa-You just gave me several ideas. Several ideas...The author seizes paper and writes furiously for a few seconds. A few ideas...all right, time to stop repeating myself.

Disclaimer: I have to endure so many disappointments at such an early age. The West Wing does not belong to me.

Charlie Young's POV

I was left behind. For the first time since I became Personal Aide to the President, I was left behind. And it felt a little weird. After almost a year of riding with the President it made me feel lost and forgotten to see the motorcade pulling out without me.

Something had struck me as very wrong when we stood beside the car. Gina seemed nervous. I had an idea that if crept around behind her and shouted out "Boo!" then she would shoot my head off. Zoey ignored Gina's mood, but it registered with me. Maybe because I work 15 feet away from the Oval Office, and I know what people look like when they're trying to hide the fact that they're nervous. Something was wrong with Gina. I was only half listening to Zoey as I watched the Secret Service agent pace around.

"I saw something!" she shouted out. She focused on a member of the crowd, and then turned around. I turned with her to see what she was looking at. An office window had its light on. Two people were silhouetted in the lights. They leveled their arms at us with careful precision. It took me a second to realize what it was, then all my watching of action movies kicked in. "Gun!" Gina screamed.

The first shot blasted through the plaza. Gina tackled me to the ground. I hit the ground hard on my elbow. I cried out loud in pain and screamed out a curse that was lost in the cries and gun blasts. I looked around to see where Zoey had gone. All I saw was a closing door and Gina crawling towards me. "Zoey's secure!" she screamed to me. We were protected by the car, and I just prayed that the car wouldn't pull away.

The gunshots sounded like miniature cannon blasts going off. They hurt my head, and I half-expected blood to start pouring out of my ears. I tightly closed my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see the crowd members panicking. An innocent Town Hall meeting had turned into murderous pandemonium. I clenched my fist so tightly that my fingernails dug groove marks that were a centimeter deep into my palm.

The gunshots tapered off. I stayed squatted down for a few seconds. I still felt vulnerable, and staying down seemed like a good idea. The Secret Service fights back. Civilians stay on the ground and hide behind cars, and hope to God that we don't die. With all my limbs shaking, I stood up. Spots flew in front of my eyes and I had to lean against eh the car to keep from passing out. When the light headedness had passed, I gazed at the scene with blurry vision.

People were screaming for help, and basically just screaming. The barriers were shoved down and were lying askew all over the ground. A woman ran up to me and grabbed my suit lapels. "I need some help," she pleaded to me. Tears were coming out of her eyes, and her face was contorted in terror, anguish, and agony. "Please help me!" There was a deep cut on her forehead. Blood was pouring down her face, and it matted her blonde hair. Her green eyes stared at me with a wild desperation.

"I...I can't do anything right now," I stammered, stumbling away from her. Her eyes had unsettled me almost as much as the shooting had. It was my fear reflected back to me. I walked into a Secret Service agent. He gently pushed me back, and ignored my mumbled apology.

"Charlie, you need to stay back," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. He moved forward, speaking into a small radio on his wrist. I had no idea what was happening until the first police car drove past me. The motorcade was pulling out, and I wasn't with it.

It made me feel frightened, and I suddenly felt completely helpless and worthless. I'm Personal Aide to the President, and I've had my job for almost a year. I was with the President for India and Pakistan, the flu, and every disaster, from mild to minor for the last ten months. To not be able to be with him now was almost like being told about Mom again.

Mom...the gunshots went through my head again. Were those god-awful explosions the last things she ever heard? My mind flashed back to the worst night of my life. I'd asked Mom to take the 10:00 p.m. shift so she could be home to meet Deanna's new boyfriend. I got the call at 12:43 a.m. And then I had to wake up Deanna and tell her...the gun-blasts burst in my head again. I violently shook my head and opened my eyes. I came out of an absolute nightmare to something that wasn't a hell of a lot better.

"Charlie!" someone called out to me. I turned around and saw Leo jogging towards me. "Charlie, you okay?"

"Yeah," I said automatically, my mind someone else entirely. Then I was startled into obedience. "Do you want a car?"

"If you could get one, then I'd like that," Leo said. I walked off to find a car. There were plenty of cars around; the trick was just getting one of the Secret Service agents to let a car get out of this madhouse. I spied the most likely candidate standing beside a black car.

"Hey Donnie," I said, standing in front of the impassive agent. "I need a car for Leo McGarry. Can I get one?"

"You're in luck," he said. "I've got a car ready to go. Someone's already in it. I think they said it was Josh." I thanked him and walked back to Leo. I told him that the car was ready. He thanked me and got into the car. I watched him leave, and walked to where most of the ambulances were gathered. Someone stumbled into me. I turned around and saw an obviously dazed CJ. I held out an arm to steady her.

"CJ, are you all right?" I asked in concern. She seemed like she had just been hit over the head with a large metal crowbar. She was stumbling and weaving. She had a massive head wound, was drunk, or was simply in shock. Possibly all of the above.

"Um, yeah, yeah I am," she said thickly. It sounded like she was in a lot of pain, and when I looked at her head I could see why. She had a large cut on her head. Blood was steadily dripping out of the wound.

"Are you sure? Because it looks like you're bleeding." CJ seemed genuinely surprised to see the blood on her fingertips. "Here. There are some EMTs over there; they'll get you fixed up." I led her over to the paramedics and then walked over to the gate. I tried to help the people. The serious wounds had been taken care of. Now it was just the cuts, sprains, and panic that was the main problem.

I felt better when I was doing something. It helped to keep my mind off of worry for Zoey and the President. I couldn't think. I couldn't let my mind embrace the fact that the President or Zoey might be shot, might be dying. I felt the desperation rising in my throat.

Toby came up to me. He had been calling out Josh's name for a few minutes. "Charlie, are you all right?" I nodded, but Toby didn't let me say anything. It's a strategy that he has perfected throughout the years. "Listen, have you seen Josh?"

"He got into the car with Leo," I told him, thinking back on the events of the night. Josh had gotten in the car with Leo. I was positively sure of it. Or at least 72% sure of it.

"No, no he didn't," Toby said with his mind somewhere else altogether. I wanted to help him, but a woman called me away to help her. Her husband had a medium-sized cut on his forearm. I got a paramedic over there and then I heard Toby's panicked shout. "I need help!"

I whirled around to see Josh's head hit the pavement. I followed the paramedics, who were following Sam and CJ up the stairs. I couldn't see a lot. I could see a huge bloody mess on Josh's chest, and that was about it. Sam, Toby, and CJ were pushed aside by the paramedics, but they were either ignoring, or didn't see Danny Concanon, who was also standing behind the paramedics.

"We're going to have to get him to GW," I heard one of the paramedics say another. I darted down the stairs to where I thought that I could get a car. I had to get the to the hospital and be with Josh. All the rest of the senior staff would be there, and so would the President and Zoey, once they heard that Josh was shot. Or they could be there already, with Zoey under surgery to remove a bullet in her stomach...I shook my head to remove the visions that the thought brought up. Zoey covered with blood, and unconscious, just like Josh...I shook my head again.

"Mike, listen, I need a car," I told one of the Secret Service agents who were standing around the cars. He looked curiously at me. "Don't ask questions right now. I just need a car." I looked over my shoulder. They were putting Josh onto a stretcher and strapping him down. I turned back. Something in my eyes must have convinced Mike to let me have the car. He nodded and I jumped in.

"I need to get to GW," I said to the driver. We pulled out of the plaza. Soon after, we were on the highway. We heard the recognizable wail of an ambulance siren behind us. We pulled over to the side and let the ambulance blaze past us. There was a black car closely following the ambulance, almost on its bumper. We pulled into line right behind the car and stayed there until the ambulance pulled in at George Washington.

I jumped out of the car to see Josh being pulled out of the back of the ambulance. CJ and Toby piled out of their car, and Sam jumped out of the ambulance behind Josh. We all ran behind the nurses as they wheeled Josh into the Emergency Room. Leo came down the hallway and did a double take when he saw the delirious Josh on the stretcher.

"What happened?" he snapped as he watched Josh try to take off the oxygen mask. I was more concerned about why Leo was already at the hospital. He couldn't have gotten the news about Josh and gotten to the hospital before us. There was another reason that Leo was here.

Josh cried out a few more things that no one but Sam understood. He leaned over the hospital bed until a nurse pulled him away. They gently ushered us out of the room and closed the door. Leo let us look in on Josh as they were prepping him for surgery. We watched until Josh was wheeled into the O.R. Leo took us into a private room where Zoey and a few Secret Service agents were waiting. Zoey and Leo shared a meaningful look.

"Guys, there's something that I need to tell you," he said, looking at all of us with a single glance. "I think you should sit down."


	11. CJ Cregg2

A/N: Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored, BORED. Have nothing to do. Decided to write. Will stop speaking in sentence fragments. Though I will admit, sometimes sentence fragments can be rather interesting and fun. But my teachers tend to think that sentence fragments are not conductive to a proper essay. Meh. Oh well.

What happened to all my people??? I updated!!!!! (I feel that I deserve some credit for that, seeing as I'm technically not supposed to update at school. I was v. sneaky.) Thank you for everyone who did review: love ya guys!!!!!!

Disclaimer: Too stupid to think of a witty disclaimer or the idea for West Wing.

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CJ Cregg's POV

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We waited with bated breath. What did Leo mean he had something to tell us? There was something worse than Josh? If there was something worse than Josh than we were all doomed to an eternity of Hell. I didn't think that anything could possibly get worse than Josh being shot. I looked around at all of my friends. Toby looked about like how I felt: scared, confused, and exhausted, though he tried to hide it. Sam looked utterly spent and defeated, completely unable to go on. Charlie was the most interesting. He had a look of utter resignation on his face. It was almost as if he knew what was coming and had decided not to fight it anymore.

"What is it?" I asked, hating the way that my voice quavered. Over the years I've gotten pretty good at hiding emotions when I'm talking to people. It's best if you always appear like you know what you're talking about when you're in front of fifty slavering White House reporters. But now I couldn't seem to keep the emotions from creeping through and violating my everyday voice. Toby heard the quaver if no one else did and turned sharply around to look at me.

"The reason that I was here before you," Leo took a deep breath and shook his head, "the reason that I was here before you..." His voice trailed off and he began again. This time it was sharp, brutal, and to the point. "The President was shot."

It felt like my entire world had been turned upside down. The President was shot? President Bartlet was shot? What? How did this happen? How did the bullet manage to get through the curtain of Secret Service agents to hit him? Who had shot him? Why? Would he be all right? What was happening right now? What should I tell the Press Corp?

My heart started to race again. It was thumping a mad polka in my chest until it felt like it was going to burst through my ribs. I couldn't breathe correctly. I looked around at everyone else, and it looked like they were going through the same thing. What was next? What horrible something else could happen? Josh, President Bartlet-who was next? Who was next on God's sadistic countdown list of White House personnel and staffers?

Zoey was standing stoically beside Leo. My heart went out to her. She might lose her father tonight. The enormity of the crime was brought home when the human aspect was considered. Not only might the United States lose their President, a girl might lose her father. And I would lose an employer who had almost become a second father to me. You couldn't help but love Jed Bartlet once you met him (some Republicans would disagree with me about that last statement). Or at least if you didn't love him, you respected him. Who could hate a person enough to kill them? What ignorant excuse for a human being could do that?

I let out a shuddering breath. Sam looked sympathetically at me. I clenched my fists, feeling the manicured nails dig deep into my palm. Leo softly cleared his throat and spoke again. "The doctors don't think that it'll be that bad," he informed. "From what I could gather, there's a clear entry and exit wound, and that's supposed to be a good thing."

He was shot, I thought to myself. After you get shot, there's really no good thing is there? After you get shot, how can your outlook not be bleak? I could tell that Toby had some thoughts that he wanted to express, but after thinking on them he realized that perhaps they weren't the best thoughts at the time. I was glad. I absolutely adore Toby, but there are just some things that you don't say to people. Leo was talking again, and I forced myself to listen to what he was saying. When Leo's speaking, it's generally about something important.

"...so I guess all we can do is wait," he was saying. "What happened with Josh?" he asked after a short pause. Everyone in the room seemed to appear to take a body blow, like they had just gotten hit with a strong gust of wind. Sam and Toby seemed to shrink and wilt with guilt. I was sure that I looked the same way. What had happened with Josh seemed to hang in the air like a thick, dark, cloud of guilt. Perhaps if one of us had asked him where he was going, or thought a little bit more about him, then he wouldn't be in the situation that he was in right now. The paramedics were taking care of my two centimeter long cut before they were taking care of Josh's sucking chest wound.

"He was behind us," Toby began in a hushed voice, so unlike his normal, brass voice that he used when arguing. "We didn't see him. Everyone thought that he was somewhere else, and it was a long time before anyone thought to start looking for him."

"How long?" Leo asked, his voice taking on a steely edge. Why does he have to do this? I asked myself, cringing internally. Why does he have to torture us more?

"A long time," Toby said in that same hushed voice. I didn't care for the voice. It admitted defeat. We were talking like Josh had already died, and now we were just going over the facts surrounding his death. I always hated when people did that; examine tragedies after they happened to see what went wrong. It always seemed to me that no matter what caused it, the end result was still the same: a lot of people died. Did it really matter who was where, and who said what?

"Leo, if you had understood what it was like..." I began. My voice trailed off and then I started to speak again. "You were there, you know what it was like. The absolute confusion, the chaos, the fear...we didn't see what happened. We should have seen what happened. Our first order of business should have been checking with each other to see if we were all right. But we didn't. We had just been the victims of terrorism. And no one expected it to happen! No one was looking for it! It was just a Town Hall meeting, and now it's something that's going to end up in the history books. We didn't look for him. But can you blame us?"

"Yes," Sam said truthfully. The simple word seemed to reinforce all of our guilt. If Josh died, then they should bring charges against us as well as whoever did it. We were as guilty as the people who pulled the trigger. My speech just proved it. It didn't matter what I was doing: I should have been looking for my friends. And even though Josh was an elitist, fascist, missed-the Dean's-list-two-years-in-a-row, Yankee jackass—he was one of my best friends, and a person that I would trust with anything.

We should have looked after him. The first thing we should have done was gather everyone around, and see if anyone was missing. We should have checked the buildings more carefully. We should have asked Josh where he was going when he turned around and left. The paramedics should have gotten there sooner. Someone should have looked around everywhere for all the wounded people. There were about sixty things that we could have done differently –and that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure that there were about three hundred and ninety other things that we could have done differently.

Leo stopped for a second. Since we seemed to recognize our guilt, he was no longer on the warpath. He shook his head as if to say that he was guilty also. "They told me that he was in the car that I went in," Leo said suddenly. "I should have realized that something was wrong then."

"What do we do?" Charlie asked. It was the first time that he had spoken since...well, since I'd seen him.

Leo waited for a second before speaking, gathering his scattered thoughts once more. "Have you called Donna yet?" he asked Charlie. Charlie shook his head. "Call her. Margaret's still there, so is Mrs. Landingham. Get them to call Bonnie and Ginger; they can get the Communication's office running. Margaret can get Operations flowing, and she can get back the people that she needs for the bullpen." Charlie nodded and went out into the hall.

"As for the rest of you..."Leo paused and looked around at us. The anger had been replaced by a sense of guilt. Wasn't anger the first step in the steps of grieving? Should we be worried that we were following the steps of grieving? Did that tell us that we sensed that Josh was going to die, and that there was nothing that we could do about that? Or was I just reading too much into the whole thing? "Probably the best thing we can do is just wait to see what's going to happen. I don't think we can do much of anything this second. We'll just wait."

"Is that all we can do?" Sam asked, sitting down in a chair. Zoey, Leo, Toby, and I copied his movement.

"If you want to add praying to waiting, then be my guest," Toby said.


	12. Sam Seaborn1

A/N: Long absence, I know. But hey. My habit of randomly disappearing gives you something to look forward to. I say that as you all throw pineapples at me. But my LAPTOP died and I had absolutely no way to post for at least a week. Technology sucks. That is one conclusion that I have come to through the past weeks (I had to ship my PC off. I don't know what's happening with it. I am very sad.).

You guys always seem to like CJ's chapters. Perhaps I should write more of her. ;)

Disclaimer: I am on my way to becoming a lawyer, but I will never in my life be as cool as Josh, Sam, or Toby. Don't own it. Never have, never will. Deal with it.

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Sam Seaborn's POV

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I'm not going to write a lot about the shooting. Others have done that. My view wouldn't be much different from theirs. Nor do I really need to concentrate on what happened at the hospital. It would be repeating information, and what good would do that do? I was terrified. I remember being terrified out of my mind. I remember that I was frozen in fear and the only thing I could think of was to shove CJ to the ground. I reacted on instinct. It would sound nice to say that I moved because I wanted to save her life and to do something heroic, but I moved on pure impulse, nothing more.

After the shooting I wandered around, trying to find people. I saw Leo, Toby, and CJ. I did not see Charlie, but I knew that he was all right. Leo had made motions to show that he was all right. The only person I did not see in the immediate aftermath was Josh. I didn't think much other it at the time because we were all under enormous amounts of stress and the scene was huge. There were millions, or it seemed like millions, of people wandering around a rather small plaza. It would take hours to find one specific person. Josh was around somewhere. I would run into him eventually.

It was when Toby called out the first time that I started to become worried. "I need a doctor!" he called out to the entire crowd. "I need help!" from far away I could spy something happening. I saw a familiar brown head start to fall. With my heart in my mouth I ran forward. CJ followed me and eventually surpassed me.

"Josh!" she screamed, running and kneeling. She almost slid on the concrete but she managed to stop herself. We all kneeled around Josh, protecting him until the paramedics could come. They finally did come, though it took them longer than I thought it should have. The paramedics pushed us out of the way. We were forgotten for more important things. I watched them work and tried not to be sick. I eventually won the battle, though there was a minute where it was touch and go.

My real story begins the second that they push Josh in the ambulance. I volunteered to go with him. No one contested my claim to ride with him. Maybe it was because I looked desperate. Maybe it was because I had known him the longest and the best. But I think it was because no one felt like fighting that night. No one was in the mood or had the energy and will. So I got to ride in the ambulance.

One thing that they never show you on TV is just how crammed an ambulance is. The reason that you never see a lot of ambulances on TV is because they're so tiny. There is no earthly way that you could get a thumbtack in an ambulance when it has a full crew, let alone a camera, a director, and all of the other stuff you need to have for a TV show.

I watched as the EMT's worked on Josh. They were saying things that I had no hope of understanding in their doctor language. I'm not even sure that they were talking about Josh; the things that they said made so little sense. The main idea that I got was that Josh had been shot and the bullet was still in him. From what I could remember on ER, I gleamed that this was not a good scenario to have.

I stared intently at Josh. He was still unconscious from before. I wanted him to wake up but at the same time I was terrified of him waking up. He would have no idea where he was or what was going on...it would be traumatizing.

My wish came true or was thwarted, whichever you prefer, when Josh opened his eyes. For a moment he seemed to focus on me. "Josh?" I asked him, praying that he knew who I was. "Josh?" his eyes reflected confusion. My worst fears had come true. He didn't remember who I was. He was so delirious that he had forgotten me.

With a click of recognition he focused on me. I could tell that he was trying to say something but the bright yellow oxygen mask prevented him from saying much of anything. "Josh, we're in the ambulance; we're going to the hospital. You just need to relax. Toby and CJ are in the car behind us. You just need to relax." He seemed put out by these words. A paramedic accidentally kicked me as she rushed to check Josh's blood pressure. I was in the way of the people trying to save my best friend's life. They really should make those ambulances bigger.

I stared carefully at Josh. His eyes were rolling around in his head. It was obvious that he was only cognizant with a struggle. As I watched him, something became clear. His vision shifted and became blurry. An expression of panic came over his face as he fought to stay in the real world. "Josh, don't do this!" I yelled desperately at him. "Stay right here!" Josh's eyes rolled up in the back of his head as he lost his battle. "Josh!" I yelled again at him. One of the paramedics turned to me.

"Please don't shout at him," she said in a calm voice. "It's not going to do any good. The most you can do is just be here for him when he comes around again." She went back to her work, ignoring my open mouth and scandalized expression.

My best friend was dying and I couldn't yell at him? I'll do whatever the hell I want to lady! I work for the President of the United States. I'll yell in an ambulance if I damn well want! My anger faded as I looked at Josh. The paramedic was right: I was rather useless now. I don't even know why they let family and friends ride in the ambulance. They can't do any good and they just get in the way. It doesn't make sense.

Josh drifted in and out. I can't remember exactly what I said to him; I knew it had to be something rather comforting. Why weren't we at the hospital yet? I knew that it couldn't possibly take this long to get to the stupid hospital. Why weren't we there yet? What was taking so long? Was the driver going slowly on purpose? Time really is relative. When you're in the biggest hurry, time itself goes by fast, while the people and objects in your life almost seem to slow down in order to compensate for time speeding up. Needless to say this was happening right now and it was infuriating.

I noticed the paramedics becoming tenser. They were starting to pack things up like they were getting ready to exit. My heart began to beat faster. A machine started beeping insistently somewhere. The ambulance pulled into the driveway and then stopped abruptly. Almost immediately they threw the doors open and rushed Josh out of the ambulance. They were gone before I could move. I stayed in the ambulance, shocked, until I came to my senses. Toby and CJ would be there. I had to go be with Josh, Toby, and CJ. This was where I was needed. I was not needed sitting in the ambulance like a directionless boy.

I ran into the hospital, pushing the doors open with my shoulder. I saw Toby, CJ, Charlie, and to my surprise, Leo. Why was he here? My mind vaguely wondered before I concentrated on Josh. He had pulled his yellow oxygen mask off with his bloody hands. He looked directly at me and once again he did not know me. This broke my heart but I ran with the stretcher. "Josh, I'm here!" I yelled at him as I came closer. I pushed my way through until I was at his side.

"I shouldn't be at this meeting," he said groggily. Trust Josh to think of work at a time like this. "I shouldn't be at this meeting," he said again in a weaker voice. He was slipping. We were losing him. I could sense it, the doctor's could sense it, and everyone around us could sense it. Josh was dying and unless we did something fast, we would lose him within the hour. "I need to get to New Hampshire!" he suddenly called, trying to rise from his stretcher.

I slightly relaxed as I realized I knew what he was talking about. He was talking about how he started to work for Jed Bartlet. "You did," I said, leaning beside his stretcher and trying to push him back down. "We both did. You came and got me, remember?" I said other comforting things to him, not that it mattered, Josh was long past understanding whatever we were trying to tell him.

I was unceremoniously pushed back as the doctors lifted him up on an operating table. "Josh a bullet collapsed your lung, I'm going to put in a tube to re-expand it," a doctor informed him. We were gently pushed out of the room and then Leo took us into the private room.

When I heard that President Bartlet was shot it felt like my world had just been taken out from under me. I could barely cope with Josh being shot and now President Bartlet was shot? Not only were they going to take my best friend away, they were going to take my leader away? They were going to take the leader of the free world away? They were going to take Zoey's father away?

As Leo was telling us what he knew, Zoey was standing beside him. She was so brave. Her father might be dying. A lesser person would have been crying and screaming and saying that life wasn't fair. A lesser person would have been begging everyone to feel sorry for her. Zoey merely stood there and listened to Leo talk. Despite her father's danger, she still grieved for Josh being shot. I'm not sure how many other people could have even thought of the other people in the crowd when their father was on the operating table.

Guilt surged through me as Leo asked what happened. If I had only gone with Josh. He was walking right beside me as we left the meeting. If I had only turned around and gone with him, none of this would be happening. I could have pulled him down when the shooting started and prevented this horrible nightmare from ever taking place. It was all my fault. I hadn't even asked him where he was going. Out of the corner of my eye I had seen him leave and I had not even bothered to ask where he was going.

Leo was finishing up saying something. "We'll just wait," he told us. Wait? That was stupid. There had to be something other than waiting we could do. Unfortunately, I had no ideas. Someone else must have some ideas.

"Is that all we can do?" I asked. I sat down in one of the sickly green chairs they had. The chair was uncomfortable. Its cushions were stuffed too tightly. It was too hard. It was a hospital chair. Of course it was uncomfortable. They don't provide comfort in hospitals.

"If you want to add praying to waiting, then be my guest," Toby said sardonically. He was right. We were politicians. What could we do in a life or death struggle? Not a hell of a lot. I bent my head and gently rubbed my temples. On a whim I stood up.

"Where are you going?" CJ asked me faintly. I motioned towards the door.

"I'm...I'm just going to go out for a while," I said vaguely. "Get some fresh air." I stumbled towards the door and it opened. I stepped out in the carefully sanitized hallway. I needed to get away from that room and away from all the sober faces. I walked down the hall and almost ran into someone. I stepped back as I realized that I knew that face. I knew that face very well. "Mallory?" I asked in disbelief. She stepped back and regarded me with an expression of dislike and sardonic enjoyment at my situation. "What...what are you doing here?" I asked again, feeling that I must be polite.

An expression of disbelief came on her face. "My father was shot at Sam," she brought up. "I thought it would be polite if I went to see him." her face clouded over. "Is there word on the President?" I shook my head.

"He's in surgery. He's been in surgery. That's all we know." She nodded and then looked at me.

"What else is there?" I started and looked at her warily. "You've just got a look around you. The President isn't all. Sam, what else happened?"

I regarded her carefully before divulging the newest of the night's surprises. "Josh was shot," I said grudgingly. I watched her face go from disbelief to denial, to grief. She seemed to implode in herself. Something occurred to me. "How did you know about the President?" I asked her. "The staff just found out a little while ago, how'd you know about it?"

"I saw it on the TV," she whispered, her face white. "That's how I knew to come here. It said that the President had been shot and that they were taking him to GW. I managed to get through by telling them that my father was here. Oh god, Sam..." her voice trailed off.

"Dammit," I muttered to myself. The news had already gotten out to the press. CJ would have to leave to do a briefing soon. How did the TV stations find out? There had been news media there for the meeting; that must have been how they knew. It just went to show that you could never relax. Every single time you thought that you had reached rock bottom this job, there was someplace lower.

"Sam, where's my father?" Mallory asked me suddenly. I pointed back at the Private Room. She thanked me and turned to go. "I know this isn't the place or the time, but we need to talk," she hesitantly said.

"Mallory, this is neither the time nor the place to talk about that," I said firmly. She nodded like she knew that was what I was going to say. The last time I saw her that night was when she turned to go into the Private Room. I walked away, further on down the hall.

I couldn't think about tonight. The man I regarded as my father figure and my best friend could be dying. I couldn't think about that. I couldn't think of the large PR disaster that awaited me back in the real world. I couldn't think of any of the events of the cursed night. Instead I thought about a sunny day in New York several years ago, when my best friend had helped me turn the course of my life around.


	13. Donna Moss2

A/N: Back again, after not so long an absence. My life is too stressed out. I have volleyball, school, a job, and I have to take care of my mother who just got out of surgery. Yarr. I can officially not put anymore in my life. Yet other people try to put more crap in my life. It's annoying. But you guys keep me straight. You guys are my reason for living! (breaks down) Well...perhaps not, but you do give me something to look forward to when I hook up the computer!

Disclaimer: If I owned this perhaps I would be rich and more able to pay for my college education. Perhaps I should beg NBC to let me own the rights for this so that I won't be poor anymore.

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Donna Moss's POV

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I ran out of the apartment and directly into my car. I normally don't drive in Washington, but today was an exception. I put my key in the ignition and turned it. The car roared to a start and I sped out of the driveway. The tires squealed as I turned onto another road.

My brain was whirling. I could no longer think straight or do anything besides keep my foot pressed on the gas pedal. The President had been shot. He was in the hospital. I was of the mind that said that a gunshot was a death sentence. If you were shot, you would die from it. My world was rather simple.

I heard a siren behind me. I thought, Oh good. They're going to the hospital as well. I'll just pull over and let them go past me. I pulled my car over and was surprised when the wailing car pulled over behind me. It was then that I looked at the flashing lights and saw that they were blue. Ohhhhhhh....darn. A police car had just pulled me over.

The policeman came over to my car. I rolled my window down to face him. He looked sternly at me. "Ma'am, do you have any idea of how fast you were going?" he asked unsympathetically.

I smiled in hopes of melting his heart. "Fast?" I asked lamely. He was not won over.

"You were going approximately 86 miles an hour," he said harshly. I sank back into my seat. Oh damn. This was never going to be good. Going 86 miles an hour was going to be a definite slowdown to my getting to the hospital. Urgency shot over me once more and I tried to do anything to get out of the ticket and the incredible hassle.

"Please, officer, I can explain why I was going so fast," I begged. He looked doubtfully at me but did not make a move to stop me. "I work for the President of the United States," I said, hating that I was using this as an excuse, but whatever worked. "I was called to go to the hospital. I need to go there. Please officer, let me go." I waited for his reaction.

"Yeah right miss," he said sarcastically. He looked at my driver's license. "Donnatella Moss?" he asked. I wordlessly nodded, rage surging through me. "Occupation?"

"I told you that," I said grudgingly. He looked at me, waiting for my "real" answer. "I'm Personal Assistant to Joshua Lyman," I said. Josh said secretary, I said Personal Assistant. Come on. It sounds much more professional.

For once he looked up at me. "You work for Josh Lyman?" he asked in surprise. I wordlessly nodded. "You should probably go," he said to me.

"What about the ticket?" I asked. Not that I wanted it, but I was somewhat confused. Mrs. Landingham would scream and yell at me if she found out that I had been denied a ticket because I was a government employee.

"We'll let it slide this time Miss Moss," he said, stepping back. I waited for a second before speeding away once more. As I drove away I looked in the rearview mirror. He was tearing up the ticket and shaking his head. Worry rose up in me again and I pushed my foot on the gas harder.

My car squealed into the parking lot of the hospital. There was absolutely nowhere to park, and there was a line a mile long. I cried out in frustration and pulled out of the line. I parked on the side of the road almost half a mile down. I started running towards the hospital, clutching my side as a stitch started to form. I stopped to pant but then I kept on going until I was in sight of the hospital. I ran towards the door, only to be stopped by several black-suited men. "Excuse me ma'am, but you can't go any further than this," they informed me politely. I almost screamed in frustration.

"I'm Donna Moss, I work for Josh Lyman," I said desperately. "I need to go in there. Please let me in."

"Do you have your ID with you?" they asked noncommittally. I automatically turned for my purse when I realized that I didn't have my purse. The only reason I had my driver's license was because it had been put in my pocket earlier in the morning. I always had my driver's license in my pocket rather than in my purse. I smiled at the Secret Service Agents while vainly searching through my coat pockets.

"It's here," I assured them. "I'll find it in just a second." I kept on smiling at them while they stared at me with blank and un-amused faces. I finally gave up. "Okay, I don't have it. Please let me go in there. I promise you, I'm not some terrorist; I really do work for the US government. I need to get into that hospital."

"I'm sorry ma'am, but unless you have a White House Staffer's ID, then you can't go inside," the man said, speaking into a microphone on his wrist. "Special orders." He nodded at me and let me know that the conversation was over. I stayed at the door for a moment before stalking away.

I had been foiled once. Now it was time to try again. I walked after to a different door. There were Secret Service agents crawling all over this place. There had to be at least one that knew me and would look the other way while I sneaked in. I looked cautiously at the agents. All right, didn't recognize any at that door. Moving on.

I walked around the entire hospital. I did not recognize a single Secret Service Agent. This could not be possible. At least one hundred Secret Service agents and I didn't see a single one of them. I growled in frustration and pounded my head into my head. "This cannot be happening!" I said out loud to myself.

I ran to a door. The Secret Service agent looked at me. "Not you again," he groaned. "How did you even manage to get past the barriers?" I looked behind me. There were crowd barriers set up and I had gone right past them without even noticing them.

"I jumped them," I said matter-of-factly. "I broke a law. Take me inside to your superior." The Secret Service agent looked confusedly at me. "I'm dangerous. I'm a convicted felon who should be shot. I'm sure your superior is inside. You should take me to him or her and let your superior pass judgment on me."

"You should," someone said, coming up behind us. I looked around and saw Drew. He was one of the agents that actually knew me. I looked at him in hope. Good. Now he would tell them to let me inside. "She jumped the barrier? Give her to me. I'll take her inside."

I tried not to dance as I was let inside. The obstacle had been passed. "Thank you," I whispered to Drew.

"Second door on your left," he whispered back to me. I jogged to the door, clutching my side again as the stitch started to form. My heart started to beat faster and faster. Some of the faster beats could be blamed on exertion, but most of my fast heartbeats could be blamed on fear. I saw the door that Drew was talking about. I ran towards it and pushed it open.

Everyone turned to look at me. A fast glance showed me that Sam, Toby, CJ, Charlie, and Zoey were in the room. I did not see Josh anywhere. He was most likely in the bathroom. "I'm sorry," I apologized quickly, looking at all of their sober faces. "They told me I should come back here. I'm sorry." They stared at me and didn't say anything. I turned and looked at the entire room. "Is there word on the President?" I asked. Their faces were starting to scare me.

CJ took in a shuddering breath before answering. "The President's going to be fine," she assured me. With that simple sentence a fifty ton weight was lifted off my chest.

"Oh thank God," I said, a happy smile breaking out on my face. "Thank God, that's the best news I've ever heard. I had such a hard time getting in; I had to find an agent who knew me..." I probably would have blabbered on forever in my dumb-blonde stage if Toby hadn't stopped me.

"Donna, Josh was hit," he said softly. I paused in waving my hands around and looked at him. he was leaning forward and clasping his hands together. He looked so serious, and I couldn't figure out why. The President was all right! But wait a moment...Josh was hit?

"I don't understand," I said haltingly. My good mood had just been plunged into darkness. There was a new threat. The adrenaline that had just gone out of my body was flooding back, tenfold. "Hit with what?" I stared pleadingly at Toby, begging him to say that Josh had just gotten a nudge with a car. He had sprained an ankle. Yes. That was it. Exactly.

"He was shot...in the chest," Toby said again. All of the air went out of my lungs. I was sucking vacuum.

"I still don't understand," I said, begging God to just pretend that this was all a horrible dream. "Is...is it serious?"

Toby took in a breath and broke the news to me bluntly. "Yes, it's critical," he said calmly. It was just so harsh and unyielding, that was what convinced me that this was true. If he had beaten around the bush then I wouldn't have believed him as readily.

"The bullet collapsed his lungs and lacerated a major artery," CJ said. She was not as blunt as Toby. Her voice had a strangely gentle edge to it. I looked around at them, uncomprehending. This was not a lie. this was not a joke. Not even Josh could be this cruel. He had been shot and he might die. He had been shot.

As that thought occurred to me I clapped my hand over my mouth. The harsh burn of tears automatically came to my eyes. I felt like I had been hit in the stomach. My breath was stolen out of my body and I felt like I was out in space, trying to breathe vacuum.

"As I said, we can't make you very comfortable here, and I'm sure there are things you need to be doing," a man in a suit said. He was probably some government employee but I had never seen him before. I slowly sank into a chair.

I couldn't think. I couldn't process anything that CJ or Sam was saying. My mind was stuck on one fact. Josh had been shot. Josh might die. He might die. He had gotten shot at the Town Hall Meeting and I wasn't there with him. I should have been there with him. Maybe if I had been there, then he wouldn't have gotten shot. I could have stopped him from doing whatever it was that he did.

Josh might die. My boss and one of my best friends might die. I tried to keep breathing. That was all that I could do right now. Breathing was my main thing that I had to do. Charlie started to walk out of the room and I followed him. "Charlie!" I called, hearing the sob in my voice. He turned around, but kept on walking on.

I pulled him away from the room and down into a relatively deserted hallway. "Charlie, when you called me you didn't say anything about Josh," I brought up. "You would have known by then, but you didn't say anything. Why didn't you tell me? I might have been better prepared."

Charlie looked at me sympathetically. "Donna, I didn't tell you about Josh because I didn't want you wrecking the car on the way over here," he said softly. I felt the sharp burning of tears again and this time I did not repress them.

I let them fall to the ground, each one a tiny memory of a time that I had spent with Josh. Charlie put his arm comfortingly on my shoulder. On an impulse I lunged forward and hugged him tightly. He stiffened before relaxing and comfortingly rubbing my shoulder. Charlie had probably saved my life. If he had told me about Josh, I would have wrecked my car getting over here.


	14. Joey Lucas1

A/N: Whee. I am back! After an incredibly long time, because my life just exploded in front of my face! Or maybe it imploded…it might have simultaneously imploded and exploded at the same time…I don't know! The important thing we have to know is that my life suddenly became ultra-crowded with completely pointless things that take away from my real joy in life: writing fanfiction.

I haven't really watched a lot of the new West Wing season yet, because Number One, I haven't had time, and Number Two, from what I've seen I really don't like it. My best opening scene did not make the movie…

Alasse's dream opening sequence: The cast is sitting in the Roosevelt Room, completely confused as what to do. They are beginning to argue, when the door opens. Silence comes down over the cast as they look at who has walked into the room.

"Hello," Sam said as he walked in the room. "I'm back, and I'm here to stay." OPENING CREDITS!

And that didn't happen. Very upset. Well. This is a transition chapter in which NOTHING happens! Yay! Thanks to everyone who's stuck with me through all of this!

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Joey Lucas's POV

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It was a slow night in California. I hadn't gotten anything important for a while, ever since I had left Washington to do the polling for the President. I packed up my briefcase, checking to make sure that everything was packed up and put in its own place. I was still working on the O'Dwyer campaign, but I was no longer working with my former enthusiasm and zeal. I walked out of my office to see the secretary at the desk.

I waved my hands goodbye and started to walk out of the office. I didn't know that anyone was running behind me until I felt someone grab my arm. I turned around and looked at Kenny. His face was chalk-white and stunned. He gestured for me to follow him, and I did, though not without questions. He did not answer any of them.

He led me to a TV screen. The picture was blurry and the camera kept on moving around. I squinted and tried to focus on what the news station was showing me. The captioning was on and I watched that intently as the flustered newscaster came on. The words scrolled by fast on the bottom of the screen and it was all my numb mind could do to follow them.

"The reports of President Bartlet being shot at were correct," he said, adjusting his microphone, not that it would make much difference to me. "He has been taken to George Washington University Hospital where we are told he is undergoing surgery. Uh…reports are coming in now…" he leant over to check a note that someone off-camera had shoved at him, "that one of Bartlet's staff members was also shot. Accounts all seem to lean towards the fact that it is his Deputy Chief of Staff, Joshua Lyman. He is listed right now as critical and is supposedly undergoing surgery for a collapsed lung and a ruptured pulmonary artery."

Kenny turned around and looked at me. "I must go," I said quickly. I turned around and started to walk out of the office. He followed me and grabbed my arm, turning me around to face him.

"Where would you go?" he asked logically. I shook my head in frustration and began to walk away. "Joey, I'm serious. Where would you go?"

"I don't know!" I said in frustration, throwing my hands up in the air. "The important thing is that I get there."

"Joey, even if you could get a flight into Washington D.C right now, which is highly unlikely, where would you go once you got there? And what would you do?"

I surrendered before his logic. I nodded and sank down into a chair. "There's most likely nothing we can do except stay here," he said, patting me on the shoulder. I turned to him and nodded. "We'll wait until things calm down over there and then we'll call."

He patted me again on the shoulder. It didn't help.

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Lord John Marbury's POV

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I sat down in the chair, a glass of scotch cradled lovingly in my hand. I had had a hard day of doing almost nothing. I glanced at the pile of papers lying on my desk. Eh, those could wait until tomorrow. I turned on the news, interested in what might be going on in the world. I was not expecting to see what was on the screen.

"Welcome, and good evening," the neatly groomed woman said. She maintained her air of professional distance well, though a perceptive person could see the insecurity behind her front. "We are getting reports that President Bartlet of the United States has been shot at as he was leaving a public event." I sat up straight at this news. Scotch began spilling out of the glass, unnoticed by me. It soaked the carpet, leaving a dark stain, much like a bloodstain.

"Reports are sketchy, but we believe that he has been taken to George Washington University Hospital and is undergoing surgery. There may also be an injured member of his staff that has also been taken to George Washington."

She turned and started another report. I watched the TV, intent that there would be more news. When it became apparent that there was not, I rang for a member of my staff. She came in, ready for an assignment.

"Go find everything that the American press has on the shooting of President Bartlet," I said, still staring at the screen. The scotch glass was nearly empty. All of the precious liquid had dropped onto the floor, enlarging the carpet stain to where it would probably never come out.

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Ruth Lyman's POV

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It seemed like such an ordinary night. It was the kind of night that you would just sit down with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and reflect on what had happened during the day. It was the kind of day where I watched the soap operas and worried about whether Jean really would commit to Bobby, despite her misgivings. It was a day in which nothing happened. Josh had mentioned in his latest email that he would be at an event with the President.

I idly turned on the TV, wondering where they were, and if Josh would be on TV. I enjoyed seeing President Bartlet, but I liked seeing my son more. The TV was stuck on another channel. I flipped the channels down, hearing the dull roar of the noise on the TV. I came down to the channel that Josh said that the meeting would be on. I watched the newscaster, waiting for him to say something about the meeting.

"We are now confirming reports that President Bartlet has been taken to George Washington Hospital," he said, looking straight into the camera, trying to look reassuring and calm. "Joshua Lyman has also been taken to the same hospital, where the doctors are now confirming earlier reports that he is in emergency surgery. President Bartlet's wounds no longer appear to be as serious as first thought, and we are expecting him to come out of surgery shortly.

"Press Secretary CJ Cregg has promised a press conference within a few short minutes," he finished up. "And we're now going to our on scene reporter, who was actually there at the shooting." The scene changed and another reporter came up. I muted the TV and let the remote fall from my numb fingers. Josh…

I raced to the phone and dialed a number without even thinking about the number that I was dialing. I waited anxiously as the phone dialed. On the third ring someone picked up. "What?" an angry voice demanded.

"Toby Ziegler?" I asked, hearing the quaver in my voice. I had dialed Toby's number.

"Yeah, what do you want?" he asked, with pure venom in his tone. He was always rather angry, but now he was absolutely furious. I felt sorry for his employees. They must be torn apart by him.

"This is Ruth Lyman," I said, biting my lip as I felt the tears start to come out. My baby had been shot! My mind went back to that terrible night when we got the call in the restaurant that our house was on fire. We came back to the house to find Josh standing out in the cold, and Joanie inside. Noah had screamed, and ranted, and had almost gone inside the house. He would have gotten inside too if it hadn't been for the firemen that had held him back.

"Oh." There was a long silence on the other end. I sniffled while waiting for him to say something. "Mrs. Lyman, we're trying to find out what we can do. We left the hospital to come back to the office. He's still in surgery. They…the doctors aren't saying anything yet."

"All right," I whispered in a soft voice. "Where's Donna?"

"She's at the hospital," he said in an unnaturally soft voice. "We're going to try and keep her there. Right now Zoey's with her and I think the First Lady is also." There was a voice at the door. "Excuse me for just a moment ma'am." He set down the phone for a few short seconds. He came back.

"Mrs. Lyman, this is Leo McGarry," another, more gravelly voice said. "Josh was being wheeled into surgery when we saw him last. He has a collapsed lung and a ruptured pulmonary artery. The doctors aren't telling us anything yet." He paused for a moment. "We have good people at GW. I personally hope that he's going to be all right."

"I'm coming down," I said, his shallow reassurances failing to calm me. There was a long pause on the other end.

"All right," Leo said. I could almost picture him nodding on the other end. "I think that would be best." I hung up the phone and got on my coat. I ran out to the car and turned on the radio, trying to find a reliable station that would tell me what was happening with my baby boy.

Most of the stations were just repeating the same thing: Josh and Bartlet had been shot; they were in surgery, press conference. None of them were telling me what I really wanted to hear: how Josh was doing. Whether or not he would live. What he would be like if he did live. Whether or not he would be paralyzed. This is what I really wanted to know.

Had he been scared when the bullets started firing around him? Did he wish for me at all? I should have been there to protect him. Mothers are there for their children when their dogs die, when their goldfish die, when the bully is mean to them, and when they fall off their bike and skin their knee. But when their children really need them, when it's a matter of life and death, we're usually not there.

My fingers were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I thought that my knuckles would burst off. How long did it take to drive from Connecticut to Washington D.C.? I didn't know, but the answer that I did, definitively know, was that the drive took too long. My foot pushed the gas, trying to push the speed limit without getting stopped by an officer.

_Oh please let him be all right, _I prayed to whoever was listening. _Please, please, please, let him be all right. The country needs him. I need him. I need my baby boy. _

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Just a few notes:

Josh's mother's house: She moved in January 2001. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the timeline of ISOTG happened before then. So, she probably would still be living in Connecticut.

Josh and Donna's relationship: Sorry folks. This is not intended to be a romance story. There will be occasional fluff, but for the most part it's a drama story showing how one person can affect many lives. I will not, I repeat, will not be writing a romance in this story (unless it's canon, like Sam and Mallory, Abbey and Jed, etc.) I believe that as long as they are in the office, there cannot be a romantic relationship between Josh and Donna as long as they both work in the West Wing. A romantic relationship depends on a sharing of the power and Josh and Donna's dynamic is such in the office that he must assume the power. Therefore, they really can't have a relationship while they're working in the West Wing. However, when they're out… (evil laugh)

Thanks for listening to the ramblings! Have fun!


	15. Toby Ziegler2

A/N: One last post before the holidays I thought. Took a slight break from the West Wing, to concentrate on job, school, and life in general. I have now decided that I am going to remain single for the rest of my life, seeing as all of my friends get screwed over in relationships. Meh. But anyway.

Yay. I love Josh's mommy. Thanks for all of your feedback guys! Wow…fifty reviews…I know to those of you seasoned writers it's not a lot, but to me it really is. I love you all!!!!!!!

Disclaimer: See previous chapters. Too stupid to make one up right now.

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Toby Ziegler's POV

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Despite what CJ and others had said about me, I had never felt more like a complete insensitive asshole than when I said that sentence to Donna. "Josh…was hit." Her face seemed to crumple before my very eyes, turning from ecstasy to shattered disbelief. She pretended like she didn't know what I was talking about. I wanted to let her keep that sense of sweet innocence, I wanted her to keep what we had all lost that night, but she had to know.

"He was shot in the chest," I said softly. I could see tears beginning in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall down her cheeks.

"I…I don't understand," she said, trying to stave off the inevitable. "Is it serious?" her eyes pleaded with me to lie to her. For a second I almost did. It would be so easy to lie to her and to just pretend that nothing had ever happened here. But then reality hit as I heard the words escaping my mouth.

"Yes…it's critical," I said, my voice unnaturally soft and gentle. I hated this tone. I wanted my regular tone back, so I could pretend that everything was normal. This tone made it sound like Josh was already dead. Donna clapped her hand over her mouth to stop the soft gasp from escaping.

The hospital man person started talking again. I tuned him out, my mind still caught in everything that I had to do and most of all, the overwhelming guilt, fear, and uncertainty. He left us alone, supposedly to start gathering up things and leave.

"I'm going to go to the Residence and get some things for the President," Charlie announced, standing up awkwardly. He patted Donna's hand before exiting the room. CJ followed suit. Sam sat on his chair, staring straight ahead at nothing. I walked over to him and touched him on the shoulder. He made no move until I waved my hand in front of his face. He broke his thousand yard and looked up at me in confusion.

"I think I'm going to go back the office for a few minutes," I whispered softly. "I think I'm going to need to start drafting a speech for the President to recite tomorrow, and I know I'm going to have a few official responses to questions if anyone starts asking."

Sam nodded and then turned back to the wall. I left the room, closing the door softly behind me. I walked outside before realizing that I had no way to get home. I had not driven myself to the meeting, someone had driven us. Josh, Sam, and I were in the same car as we went to the meeting. I saw a black car start to pull out of the hospital parking lot and I started to run towards it. It was CJ and Charlie! I had to catch up with them; otherwise I would have no way of getting back to the West Wing.

I started running after the car, waving my arms to try to get their attention. Instead of slowing down and waiting for me, the car seemed to speed up and try to get away from me. I angrily sped up, cursing at CJ and her childish behavior. _CJ, now is _really _not the time to be doing this, _I ranted inwardly in my brain. I saw a way to cut the car off. I ran between the lines of cars, inwardly preparing a crushing remark to say to CJ. I got up beside the car and banged on the top. "I'm here!" I yelled. The car stopped and I leaned up against it, waiting for a driver, and/or CJ to stick her grinning head out of the window.

The window rolled down and I prepared a long, angry remark about how playing "Catch Me If You Can" in a hospital parking lot after the President and Josh had been shot was really immature. However, instead of CJ I saw a little, terrified, old man stick his head out. He must have been at least eighty-six years old. I stepped back in astonishment.

"I'm sorry sir," he said, raising his hands above his head. I saw that his hands were trembling from fear. "I don't know what you want….I didn't meant to do anything wrong." I think my mouth nearly hit the ground. It was one of the rare occasions in which I am not only lost for an eloquent word, I'm lost for a word at all.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry, this is all just a really big misunderstanding," I said, backing away from the car. I noticed a license plate on the car as I walked away. If I had just bothered to pay attention I could have avoided giving an old man a heart attack. A car horn beeped at me and I turned around to see an arm waving outside of another black car. I walked slowly over there, running my hands through what hair I had left.

I opened the door and slid inside, ready for the smart remarks that would come. "So, what was the old man doing?" CJ asked. I turned sharply to her, expecting to see a smarmy grin on her face, but was surprised when I saw her face devoid of any emotion at all. Even my humiliation had failed to bring her out of her mood?

"CJ, are you all right?" I asked, gently laying my hand on her forearm. She nodded and absently rubbed her neck.

"I'm fine," she muttered, staring straight ahead at the windshield. "I just need to concentrate on what I'm going to say at the press conference."

"CJ, you don't need to worry about that," I said, in a vain attempt to cheer her up. "You know exactly what they're going to ask; it's not going to be that big of a deal."

"Toby, I don't know what they're going to ask," CJ said dully, completely shocking me. "I have no idea what to even expect. Right now, AP knows more than I do, hell, they probably know more than the Secret Service does. We don't know where the suspect is, we don't know how many of them were there, and we don't know if Josh is going to be all right. So no Toby, I don't know what to expect in the press conference."

I sat back on the seat, completely stunned. CJ's made a career out of being a press secretary. She's a natural at it. She's glib, thinks quickly on her feet, and she can word statements so that they're ambiguous without appearing to be. Last year, she learned how to outright lie to the Press Corp. but her best talent for being a Press Secretary is her ability to guess what questions the press is going to ask before the fact. I've seen other press secretaries do it, but never with as much skill as she does. She's a natural at it; it's what she's built her career on. And now she was telling me that she didn't know what the press was going to throw at her? It was enough to make me lose all thought of what I was going to say, again. This was getting to become a habit with this night.

Charlie spoke for the first time as we came inside the gates. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in the Residence," he said, disappearing up a staircase. CJ and I waited before starting to walk down the hallways. We came to the junction where I would split off to go into the Communications office and she would go down the hall to her office. We lingered at this place, each uncertain of what to say. True to my nature, I spoke first.

"CJ," I began, but she took another one of my trademarks and interrupted me.

"Thanks Toby," she said, smiling a horrible, false smile and walking down the hallway backwards. "I know what you're going to say, and thanks. I'll…I'll see you in a few minutes?" she asked. Without waiting for a reply, she disappeared past the double doors. I followed her for several steps, staring through the doors to see where she was going. She was pausing in front of a door, staring intently into it.

I winced as I realized what she was looking at. I had forgotten that she would have to walk past Josh's office to get to hers. She waited outside of the office. It was almost like Josh was on the phone and she was waiting for him to finish so that she could yell at him again. I felt like running past the doors, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. _"He's not there!" _I screamed in my mind. _"He's not there! Stop making this harder than what it has to be!" _with a large sigh, she finally walked past his office and disappeared into her own. I watched her door for a few more seconds to see if she would venture out. She did not. I sighed, turned back, and walked into the Communications office.

No one seemed to notice my appearance. Not that there were usually drum rolls and cheering when I entered the Communications office, but usually Bonnie or Ginger would pause and say hello. But Bonnie and Ginger weren't' here now and everyone had much more important things than me on their minds. Come to think of it, I had more important things on my mind.

I went to my office door and pushed it open. In all my worry about the space shuttle, I had forgotten to lock it like I usually did. I turned on the lights and went through some papers, trying to get my mind calmed down enough to work. I heard a small noise behind me and turned around. Ginger was standing there, her eyes wide and terrified.

"Ginger, I didn't know you were here," I said, trying to get the 'I had just been stabbed by a close friend' look out of her eyes. She shook her head and gripped her scarf tightly, trying to get her words out.

"I got the phone call," she started, shaking her head. "And I turned on the TV…" her voice trailed off and I was suddenly terrified that she was going to start bawling. That would not be good for team morale if they saw someone break down.

"Hey, come here," I said, holding out my arms. She collapsed into them, hugging me tightly. I rubbed her back for a few seconds until I was sure that she was all right to go. I muttered some comforting words to her that didn't really mean anything, but Ginger didn't need to know that. After several seconds we separated. "You feel better?" I asked. She smiled bashfully and nodded. "You ready to get to work?"

If we had done that any other time, then there would have instantly been at least twenty rumors floating around the school about how we were now an item. The rumors probably would have been started by our own, very beautiful, Ms. Donnatella Moss. But now no one was worried about us. No one really cared about us, come to think of it. Ginger smiled and moved off to her desk.

As I started to walk into my office, I could have sworn I heard a voice. "What was that?" I asked, turning around. The voice did not sound like anything I'd heard before in the West Wing.

"I didn't say anything," Ginger said, looking confusedly at me. I turned back to my office and my memory almost immediately catapulted me into a bar, several years ago.

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I set down the phone, feeling decidedly worse than I had just minutes ago. Leo sat posed on the edge of my desk. "Have you ever met Josh's mother?" I asked, trying to remove some of the feelings I had felt from that conversation.

"Just once at a fundraiser," he said, shaking his head. "It was around Christmas, and josh had invited her there so that they could spend the holidays together. I was friends with his dad, but I'd never met her before."

"I didn't know that you were friends with Josh's father," I said, looking up sharply. "You didn't leave after he died."

"That was because I was the main factor in trying to get this President elected," Leo said, his voice suddenly sharp. I decided to let it lie and turned back to my papers that I had been working on before Ruth Lyman had called.

Leo nodded and made like he was going to leave. Before he walked out of the door he turned back to me. "What are you working on?" he asked, looking with interest at the large pile of papers on my desk. I rummaged through them, trying to organize some of them.

"Just some official statements, a few press releases," I said, trying to make one notepad disappear underneath my desk calendar. Leo, being the smart and observatory person that he was, noticed it right off the bat.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing at the half of the notepad that I had not been able to hide underneath the calendar. I pulled it out, cringing in anticipation of what I was going to say.

"It's just a few get well remarks for Josh," I said, staring at my scrawled sentences. "And…some other things," I said, looking up at Leo. He was looking intently at me and I turned my gaze back to the notepad. The blue lines on the yellow paper seemed to waver and shift before my eyes. I spoke to the paper, choosing my words carefully and speaking distinctly. "If…if Josh doesn't make it…" I finally looked up in Leo's eyes, seeing the disbelief in there. "If Josh doesn't make it, someone's going to have to write a eulogy."

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Sigh. Poor Toby. Poor josh. I actually feel sorrier for Toby because I can never get him EXACTLY in character. It's annoying. His character always seems to let part of itself be captured, and never its entirety. Poor writer who has to actually put Toby in character and make up lines for him. I'm using lines from someone else, and I STILL can't get him in character. V. annoying.

Happy Holidays!!!!

Alasse


	16. Leo McGarry2

A/N: Oh god. I hope that no one's given up on this. I know I haven't, but to be quite frank, I've had A LOT of stuff going on. I'm sorry that I made you guys wait for so long (I feel bad, I really do!) I did get West Wing Season Three for Christmas (and spent most of it cursing at the stupid people for killing off Simon. I still haven't forgiven them for that. Oh well).

Anyway, I'm back and I'm not dead!

Quick note to Catherine: Yes, I know that Josh's father and Leo were good friends and Leo would probably call Josh's mother by her first name. Hopefully this chapter will explain why he doesn't(I hope anyway).

Disclaimer: I actually wrote this without a disclaimer and then I went back to look at the top…it looked somewhat empty. So I came up here and wrote one. I don't own it. That's why it's called FANfiction?

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Leo McGarry's POV

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I walked into my office and shut the door. The way Margaret had looked at me when I walked in made me think that I was the one who was undergoing surgery. There was so much to do. How could there be so much to do? It was unreal. The President had just been shot; we shouldn't be worrying about stupid Constitutional things! All right, so Iraq might attack us and if they decided to do so within the next twenty-four hours we officially wouldn't have a President, but come on! It wasn't going to happen. Nancy was just being paranoid.

I sat down behind my desk and tried to think for a moment. It was hard. It would be so much easier with a drink…I looked at the door to the Oval Office. I knew that Jed kept a bottle of scotch in one of the desk drawers. Mrs. Landingham was at the hospital and Charlie was either at the hospital or in the Residence. There would be no one to see me. It would be so easy. I could sneak in there…take a drink…I could almost taste the sharp burn of scotch going down my throat.

I actually half-rose out of my chair before sinking back down again. No. I could not wreck it. Noah had always been telling me not to give it up. Noah…I sank back down into the chair as I thought over him. Noah was dead…and it looked like his son might follow him. No. No, no, no, no. Josh was not going to die. There were good people at GW. They would take care of him.

Noah…I wasn't even there when he died. I never even went to his funeral. I had tried to pass it off as "I was busy getting the President elected" but the truth was that I didn't want to go. Over the years Noah and I had grown apart. I grew more and more absorbed in politics and started pulling away from my old friend. I had barely known Josh before he started to work for me.

I stared at the phone, thinking over Ruth's call. When I had started pulling away from Noah, I had pulled away from her as well. It had gotten to where we hardly ever saw each other. I had no doubts that she still harbored hidden dislike at me for missing her husband's funeral. Once upon a time I'd have called her Ruth, or one of the pet names that I had created for her and long since forgotten. But now I just called her Mrs. Lyman. It felt strange, but I couldn't call her Ruth. After everything that had happened…no. I could not claim the privilege of calling her by her first name.

"Leo?" I looked up at Margaret's voice. She looked at me with her worried eyes again. I hated that look. She looked like a frightened dog that's been hit one too many times.

"Yeah?" I asked, putting my feet back down on the floor and clasping my hands. Who in the world wanted to see me now?

"I just wanted to make sure that you're all right," she said before quickly disappearing back to her desk. I shook my head and rubbed the bridge of my nose. This was all too much to deal with. I needed to take a break. It would be so easy…just walk into the room…my eyes darted into the small doorway between my office and the Oval Office. No. I looked up and imagined that I saw Noah up in heaven, looking down at me disapprovingly. I glared up at the ceiling.

"Shut up," I said before looking at the door. I winced as Margaret came into the office again. Is she going to do something else strange again? I wondered.

"You've got a call from the First Lady," Margaret told me. She pointed at the phone. "Line one." She swept out of the room and I picked up the phone.

"Abbey," I said when I picked up the phone.

"Leo," she said. Her voice sounded composed and very polished. She had her "First Lady" voice on, the voice that the nation saw. She was in control of the situation now. "They took him out of surgery," she said.

"Yes, I know," I said. It might have been rude, but I wanted to know if anything was wrong.

"He just woke up from the anesthetic a moment ago," Abbey continued. "It was just for a moment and we didn't get to talk to him. The doctors say that he's going to be fine."

"All right. Thank you," I told her. I already knew that he was going to be fine, but I could never get tired of hearing that wonderful phrase. "The President's going to be fine." It was such a beautiful phrase. There were some of the most glorious words in the English language, and they were all together to make this superb sentence.

"Is there any-"

"We still don't know if Josh is going to be all right." Her polished voice suddenly faltered and then it was back with a snap. "Leo, we'll call you again when the President wakes up." We both said our goodbyes and hung up. I felt slightly better, and much worse at the same time. I shook my head.

"Margaret!" I called out to her. She came to the door, almost as if she had been waiting right beside it. Knowing Margaret, she probably _had_ been waiting right beside the door.

"Yes," she asked promptly.

"Margaret, I'm going to need the Security Report of 1942," I said, leafing through some papers on my desk. "I'm also going to need to be updated on what's happening downstairs every fifteen minutes, make sure that Nancy McNally knows that. I'm also probably going to need to see John Hoynes sometime tonight, just in case…"

What was I going to say? Just in case the Republican Guard attacks us? Just in case the President dies? Oh God. This night kept on getting more and more complicated. It was difficult enough just believing that your best friend in the world, and the man that you look on as your son had gotten shot. It got more complicated when you realized that the second man might die. It got even more complicated when your best friend was the leader of the free world, and there were things like countries that didn't like us getting ready to attack.

There are some times when I wish that Jed had slapped me silly when I told him to run for President.

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Short I know, but I figured you needed something. Have fun, and don't forget to review!


	17. President Bartlet2

A/N: Sorry about the long delay everyone. I just had too much going on to update for a few weeks. That and I also had to go back and watch In the Shadow of Two Gunmen again to make sure that I wasn't forgetting everything. Why? Because I'm just obsessive like that.

Just because someone asked for it, and I thought it would be interesting to see how this turned out…

Disclaimer: Yes! It all belongs to me! (Rabid lawyers come and attack) …Maybe not…

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Mrs. Landingham's POV

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I don't really like guns. I don't like hearing them, and I certainly can't stand to see them. Of course, that's unfortunate when you work in the West Wing, right next to the Oval Office. Because when you work next to one of the most important people in the entire world there tend to be many guns crowding around you at the same time.

I wasn't expecting any guns that night. I was expecting to ride home in my nice reliable car, and make myself something quick and go to bed. I was running through an entire list of things that I had left to do when I ran into Margaret. She greeted me and we walked into the Communications Bullpen together. "Is the President not back yet?" she asked curiously.

I smiled fondly as I lay my things down. "No. he's probably still there, schmoozing on the rope-line. He always says that he's coming straight back, but he just can't resist a good rope-line." This sparked an event in my memory and I started speaking. That was back when Jed (no matter how formal the office was, he would still be Jed to me) wasn't so worried all the time. That was when he was Governor and had time to relax. I suppose that those days are gone now.

I was still going through my tale when Margaret suddenly stiffened and stared at the TV. I had no idea what she was looking at, and I thought it was a tad bit rude that she had looked away in the middle of my story. I faintly heard her say something, but I was too caught up in reminiscing to bother. It wasn't until she practically snapped my name that I stopped my story.

She was staring up at the TV, her entire body stiff. I looked up at the newsman. His normal composed attitude was flaking, which served to scare me more than Margaret's wide eyes and rigid body. He took a deep breath before looking straight into the camera. "We are getting reports that multiple gunshots were fired at President Bartlet's vehicle whilst he was exiting a public event-"

I didn't stay around to hear anything after that.

When I ran, I don't even know where I was running to. All I knew was that I was not going to see another one of my boys shot down. I vaguely heard Margaret calling after me. Desperation clawed at my chest, and my mind shot back to when we had heard the news about the boys. All I could hear was the doorbell ringing, echoing throughout the house.

I ran out into the main foyer of the West Wing. Secretaries and interns looked at me like I was insane. I'm sure they had all heard the stories: Dolores Landingham, Personal Secretary to the President. I don't like to brag, but I'm sure that I was most likely the most important aide or Secretary that worked in the West Wing. And here I was, running about like a chicken with its head cut off.

I skittered to a stop and looked around. I was searching for something, I didn't know what. I decided that it wasn't in the foyer and ran back the way I had come. Aides and others scattered in my wake, all looking after me in interest. I ran back to where Margaret was waiting. She wordlessly held a phone out. I accepted it, my hands shaking slightly.

"Hello?' I asked, my voice shaking slightly. I had sudden, terrible, visions about it being a Secret Service agent's voice. _"Dolores Landingham? We regret to tell you that Josiah Edward Bartlet, President of the United States, was shot and killed in the line of duty." _ I violently shook my head to dispel those images.

"Mrs. Landingham?" a familiar voice asked. It took me several seconds to realize that it was Charlie on the other end.

"Charlie," I said into the phone, trying to sound professional. I knew that some of my relief bled into the tone, but I had to stay professional. It was the only thing keeping me sane at this point. "Where are you?"

He hesitated for a second-a second too long. When he spoke again, his words were guarded and short. "I'm in a limousine," he told me. "We're going to GW."

I felt my knees going weak again and my brain seemed unable to process correctly. GW? GW was a hospital, no? What would Charlie be doing at a hospital? Oh God…I gripped the desk tightly.

"Mrs. Landingham?" Charlie asked, some urgency in his voice. I forced myself to listen to him, even though my brain was running along at hyper speed. "Mrs. Landingham, are you there?"

"Yes Charlie, I'm right here," I said, somehow managing my hyperventilating and speaking normally. "What happened?"

"There were shots fired," he said, his voice suddenly losing some of its professional edge. "Mrs. Landingham…President Bartlet was shot."

If there hadn't been a chair right behind me I don't know what would have happened. It was like my legs suddenly didn't exist, or that they had been numbed and were no longer able to support my weight. "Do…do they know how serious it is?" I whispered into the phone. I could almost see Charlie biting his lip before answering.

"No," he finally said. "I'm calling all of the other aides. We need to get them into the West Wing and get them working, especially the aides in the Communication Bullpen. Is Margaret there?"

"Yes, she's right here," I said faintly, watching Margaret. Her eyes were wide and worried and she nodded as if she thought Charlie could see her.

"Good. She needs to call people, the Chiefs of Staff, and get them out of bed and into the White House."

"All right," I said, nodding my head. This I could do. This was work, this was easy, this was normal, this was routine. As long as I had something like this to concentrate my efforts on, I would be all right. "Charlie, how long do you think it'll take before we know anything?"

"I don't know," he said. There was a long period of silence during which I could hear the wail of sirens. "Mrs. Landingham, I have to go. I'll call you when it looks like we know something."

"All right," I said, my voice going faint once more. "I'll be here." I hung up the phone and told Margaret what Charlie had said. She immediately went for the phone and started punching in numbers. I walked back to the desk outside of the Oval Office. Unable to stop myself, I peered in. Things were in order there, for the most part. There were several papers that were scattered about the room, but those would be easily cleared up.

I walked in and started to rearrange the papers automatically. I looked over them all. There were notes for his presentation tonight, notes about the American pilot, and just notes in general. I arranged these all so that they were in some semblance of order. I looked at the notes for the presentation. He had written several statements in the margins, sometimes supporting and sometimes disagreeing.

It was almost five minutes after I walked in the room when I realized that there were tears going down my face. I tried to wipe them off quickly, but they kept on falling down my cheeks. I finally sat down on the couch, caught up in the memories.

_The doorbell rang. I looked up from the couch, where some shreds of wrapping paper still remained. "Robert?" I called out. I didn't think that we were expecting anyone today. I shrugged and put down the book that I was reading. I walked over to the door, and was then faced with every mother's worst nightmare-two Marines at her front door._

_"No," I gasped, automatically grasping the doorframe. I shook my head, a burning starting in my nose. This was the moment that I had nightmares of; this was the day which I had dreaded. I had prayed that my boys would come home, so I had never had to experience this day. _

_They looked at me with unshakeable sorrow in their eyes and I wondered just how many times they had to do this every day. "Delores Landingham?" they asked. I numbly nodded my head. _

_"We regret to inform you that on December 24, 1970, Andrew and Simon Landingham were killed in an ambush. They were admirable medics, and will be sorely missed. They died whilst performing their duty in an act of bravery."_

And now it had happened again. Guns had yet again claimed another one of my boys. And once again, when my presence might have been needed most-I was not there.

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President Bartlet's POV

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My head hurt. It was dark. My limbs felt like they weighed at least fifty pounds each. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. And my stomach felt like it had been ripped open, and the stomach acid had spilled out. All in all, I was not a happy person when I woke up.

I turned my head and moaned. I forced my eyes open, but the best image I got was that of a softly lit, blurry room. There was nothing that told me where in the world I might be. I tried to force syllables out of my mouth, but I would have no idea what I would say even if I could speak. My first instinct was to call for either Abbey or Leo. But if Abbey was in the room, and the first name I called out was that of Leo's, she might be slightly confused and more than slightly upset with me. Better not to say anything at all.

"Jed?" a quiet voice asked. There was only one person in the world that called me that. I squinted my eyes and was rewarded with a sight of the lovely Abigail Bartlet. I was now even more grateful that I did not call out for Leo.

"Abbey," I said. I tried to think of something humorous, but nothing came to mind. She leaned over my bed and gently kissed me on the forehead.

"How do you feel?" she asked me. I was about to give her a detailed answer, but she abruptly switched the subject on me. "Do you remember anything?" I waited to see which question she wanted me to answer, then decided that she probably wanted me to answer the second one.

I thought before answering. All right. I remembered the meeting, and then I remembered walking back outside. I remembered talking with people, and then Gina screaming… "Gun!" there were insane gunshots that rocketed all around the small plaza…and then I just remembered a sharp pain in my stomach. At the time I had just thought that it was a cramp or a pulled muscle. And then I remembered seeing the bright red stains come out of my shirt…tasting the copper in my mouth.

"Jed?" Abbey prompted.

"I remember the gunshots," I said haltingly. Abbey slowly nodded as if she expected this. "I remember being taken to the hospital. Leo was in the Emergency Room with me…so was Zoey…" I suddenly tried to sit up straight. "Zoey! Is she all right? She was going into shock-"

"Jed, she's fine," Abbey prompted, putting gentle hands on my shoulders and forcing me back into bed. My body was not ready to fight against her and I went limp. "Zoey's fine." She smiled at me, but there was a lingering sadness about her mouth and eyes that refused to go away. I looked at her carefully. When you've been married for as long as we have there's very little that you don't know about your mate. And I know when Abbey's upset and trying to hide it from me. I know the look that she gets in her eyes and around her face.

"Abbey, what's wrong?" I asked her. She said nothing, but held out a glass of water for me to drink. She urged me to take tiny sips as I lifted it up to my lips. I took one sip and then put it down on the table. My hands shook and I spilled some water, but we escaped without any other tragedies. I looked firmly at her.

"Abbey, what happened?" she shook her head slowly at me.

"Jed, you just woke up. I can't tell you right now. Just go back to sleep," she soothed. "We'll talk about it when you wake up again."

If I had any energy at all at that moment I would have pounded my fist onto the bedside table. "Abbey, we're going to talk about this now," I said in my "this is the President speaking, and I want to know what's going on" voice. It's usually the voice that gets things done. Not so with Abbey. Apparently her husband being the President doesn't really impress her that much.

She looked at me and was getting ready to say something when I interrupted her yet again. "Abbey, please tell me what happened," I begged her. "If you don't then I'm going to be even more stressed out than I was to begin with."

She assessed me and then sighed. "Jed…you weren't the only one shot," she began. Fear struck my heart and I began to regret making Abbey tell me what had happened. "When the gunshots began…there was someone else hit. You didn't know about it because they didn't find him until much later. Hardly anyone knew about it."

"Abbey…who?" I asked, pleading with God that it was just a member of the crowd. It seems horrible, but for some reason I would rather that a member of the crowd was hit. It wouldn't be my staff, my family, that way.

She froze with her mouth slightly open. She bit her bottom lip, buying more time for herself. When she met my eyes it was with an alarming amount of grief. "Jed…" she whispered softly, reaching out and taking my hand. I could feel her hand trembling as it lay over mine.

"Jed…it was Josh…"

-

Mrs. Landingham is hard to write. Bartlet didn't turn out the way that I wanted him to. Oh well. Enough whining. Let's be happy that I finally got a chapter out.

Enjoy yourselves, and don't forget to review! (Point) the Blue Button is our friend! Our friend!


	18. Abbey Bartlet1

A/N: Hoo boy. Sorry guys. (Author ducks head and accepts many blows) It's been a really long time since I updated, no? Well, sorry. And that's a sincere apology. I have no right to keep you waiting that long and other such apologetic things.

Here's something that several of you have been waiting for caring!Abbey Bartlet with grieving!Donna!

Disclaimer: Oh, how my life would different if only I had come up with the idea first! If only…

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Abbey Bartlet's POV

Being a doctor is the greatest pleasure in my life. All right, I won't lie, being First Lady is rather nice sometimes, but being a doctor was always my ambition. When I was a small child I was always the first kid over at the play stethoscope, diagnosing horrible diseases in all of my playmates and managing to bring them back to life at the last second. I never lost that passion for it, not after high school, college and med school. And then I met Jed.

When I met him he was a student and Notre Dame, studying to be a priest. _A shame, _I thought after I met him. _He seems like he would make a nice husband to some lucky girl. _That was all the time I spent thinking about it. Several months later we met at a party. I asked him how studying for the priesthood was going and that was when he told me that he had given up on that, had changed his major to economics. That was the first night that he asked me out. I accepted, and then about six months later we were engaged. You might think it was fast, but we were young, we were in love and we just had that feeling that comes about once in a lifetime when you're young and arrogant and you think: _This was meant to be. _Most of those people are wrong. We were lucky. We were right.

He wanted to be an economist. I didn't quite understand it, but I got to be a doctor. As long as I had that, I was fine. Then he won the Nobel Prize and our lives changed. Sure, the economics prize might not be as widely sought after as the others, but I still thought that it was somewhat neat that my husband had won a Nobel Prize. Suddenly people were noticing us. I don't quite remember how we got into the politics, it all happened so fast. The important thing is we managed to get our name into politics, got elected to the House of Representatives for New Hampshire, and then Governor of New Hampshire. It was overwhelming and I thought that this was as high as we could ever reach. And then Leo McGarry came to us.

I remember that night with perfect clarity, the night that Jed first told me that he intended to run for the office of President of the Untied States. I was in bed, waiting for him to get in. this was a later night than usual, but I wasn't really concerned. He probably just had some work that could not wait another day and he was finishing it up. He came into the bedroom, his face flushed and his eyes bright with excitement.

"Abbey, Leo came to see me today," he told me, waiting for some reaction. I nodded pleasantly and put down the book.

"Did he feel like staying overnight?" I asked, ready to swing my legs out of bed and go to greet him. "I could make him something very fast and we have plenty of spare bedrooms here."

"No, he just stopped by for today…I think. I don't know. He came into see me earlier this morning and ever since then I haven't been thinking straight. He came to tell me that he thinks…" Jed paused and let his sentence run off. This was the one thing about Jed that I absolutely hated. He was apt to trail off in the middle of a sentence if something else caught his attention. I coughed slightly to bring his attention back to me.

"Abbey, Leo thinks that I should run for President of the United States," he said in a rush, obviously glad to have that out in the open. I paused, my mouth hanging wide open in astonishment. Governor of New Hampshire seemed like a big leap, but President? As in, the man who would run our country? That was too far out of the realm of possibility, even with Jed.

It never really occurred to me that my husband could actually run this country. Even when I was spending time with Josh, Toby, Sam, and CJ it didn't really sink in that we were trying to make my husband the most powerful man in the world. When I was defending him for not being ready, I was also defending myself. I don't think that either one of us was ready. But when it came down to it, we were ready. We both were. The night of the Illinois primary, the night that we found out that he was the President-elect, when he was sworn in…we were ready when it mattered.

And all through this, I was the doctor. I was Dr. Bartlet in New Hampshire, and I was Dr. Bartlet during the campaign. Something happened in the campaign that I disliked. I stopped being a doctor. Now when everyone looked at me they saw Mrs. Bartlet instead of Dr. Bartlet. It upset me, but I kept my mouth shut for once for the good of the campaign. I wish I hadn't done that. For in that one second of not correcting the stupid reporter, I lost my status, my career, myself. I lost the ability to be Dr. Bartlet and I became just like almost every other First Lady, just a side place, a robot to smile and nod, support whatever her husband said and stand beside him while the flashbulbs were going off. It ate at me, and I never realized how much until the night that my husband was shot.

That night started out almost like any other one. I was at the Residence, just performing some paperwork that my office needed. The television was on, and provided some comforting background noise, even though I was paying absolutely no attention to it whatsoever. The knock on the door was the only thing that disturbed my peace and solitude.

I stood up and walked towards the door, trying to calm my racing heart. No one knocked except for people who were not Jed. It couldn't be anyone from my office, they'd all gone home. It couldn't be Charlie looking for Jed because he was in Rosslyn with Jed. The only people that my brain could come up with were the Secret Service.

I opened the door and found out that my brain had been right. "Mrs. Bartlet, you need to come with us," one said, moving away so that I could walk out of the room. I automatically bristled at the way that I had been addressed, but then concern for my family took over.

"Why, what's happening?" I asked, looking around as if I expected to see the answers in the hallway. The agents' faces were carefully expressionless. They were so nonchalant that I knew for certain that something was happening. And I knew that it wasn't anything good.

"Mrs. Bartlet, we need to get you to a secure location right now," they said in a carefully measured voice. They took several steps forward, expecting me to follow them. I took several steps forward and then stopped.

"I want to know what's going on," I said, trying to control the quaver in my voice. Whether it was there from rage or fear, I didn't know that myself.

The agents exchanged glances, apparently speaking volumes with their eyes. They appeared to come to the same conclusion and turned back to me. "Ma'am, the President was walking out from his meeting when he was shot," they said quickly, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. "Now we need to get you in the car and to a secure location."

I took a step back, defying them with my posture. "No, I am not going to a secure location!" I said, raising my voice unnecessarily. "I am going to the hospital with my husband. And anyone who tries to tell me differently can watch me shove a stethoscope into a part of their anatomy that I'm sure they would rather have free." It's interesting. Secret Service agents look rather funny when they're threatened and they actually take the threat seriously.

One of the braver ones steps forward. "Ma'am, our policy is that we have to get you to a secure location. They've already taken the Vice-President to one, now we need to get you."

"Well, that's all well and good for the Vice-President," I said, losing my famous temper. "He might be President. I'm not. And I would like to go and to spend time with my husband not go hide around in some damned hole!" I caught my breath and glared up at the Secret Service agents.

"Mrs. Bartlet, we sympathize with you, but this is Secret Service procedure. I need you to cooperate with us. Now please. You'll be taken to your husband when we're sure that you're in no danger." They saw me trying to argue again, and then he spoke up before I could. "Mrs. Bartlet, your husband has been shot. We don't know why, we don't know by whom, and we don't know how many of them there were. It could be a plot to ruin our government. What I need you to do is just to cooperate with us."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. A hopeful look came onto all of their faces before I spoke again. "But this is my husband that we're talking about. I'm sorry that I'm not making your jobs any easier, I really am. But this is the man that I swore to spend the rest of my life with, through the good and bad, for better or worse. That hospital is where I need to be. And if you say Secret Service procedure is the only reason for you not taking me to the hospital, then I swear to God that I will get on the phone and I will call the head of Secret Service and force him to make an exception for me."

I jutted my chin out stubbornly, just daring them to disagree with them. "I'll be back in just a moment," one of the agents said, walking down the corridor and taking out a small phone. I tapped my foot impatiently. After a few minutes the agent came back. He smiled at me and I ventured to give him a slight nod. "It's your lucky day Mrs. Bartlet," he said in the manner of someone playing Santa. I looked at him in shock.

"Lucky day? My husband's been shot, and you're saying that this is my lucky day?" he tried to walk back over his words and apologize, but I merely waved him off. "Never mind. We'll have plenty of time to apologize at a later day. For now let's just get to the hospital."

We started to walk down the stairs, and our pace increased the closer we got to the door. By the time that I could see the car I was almost sprinting, which was rather uncomfortable seeing as I had not changed out of my uncomfortable shoes. I shouted out some doctors' terms, and got into the car. I could hardly restrain myself from calling the hospital from the car and finding out what was happening. _Now Abbey, don't do that, _I cautioned myself. _God knows that they have enough going on now without the crazy First Lady trying to find out and run the entire hospital. _

The ride took entirely too long to get to the hospital. Once inside the Emergency Room I could feel myself relax. It's strange that a place filled with as much blood, death and despair as that place could make me feel comfortable. But it did. I could feel Mrs. Bartlet, the First Lady slipping away. I could feel the no-nonsense, fast-talking, intelligent Dr. Bartlet return to the front. I exchanged medical statistics with the doctor in charge after greeting Zoey and Leo.

After the doctor left, Leo took me aside. "Abbey, he's going under anesthesia," he told me. I immediately understood what he was talking about and nodded slowly.

"I'll go talk to him," I said, spinning on my heel to go the other way. Leo took my forearm and held me back.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asked. I looked at him in distress. "I just mean, what's to stop him from going to the press as soon as he's done? This could ruin everything."

"I'd much rather my husband lose his political career than my life," I said sharply, turning around. "After all, I always liked the house at New Hampshire. Much more space."

The words of Leo still echoed in my mind when I was talking to Dr. Lee. "When all this is over, tell the press…don't tell the press…it's your choice." I leave the darkened room and immediately lean against the wall, unable to support my own weight…not that it's a lot of weight you understand.

The night seemed to take me over for a short minute. I heard sirens, but I couldn't move myself to go investigate. I just didn't care anymore. I couldn't force myself to care. My eyes closed for a second before I heard Leo's voice raised in a shout, anger, frustration and fear shooting through his normally calm tones. "Josh!" My eyes snapped open and my heartbeat started to pound again, sending the blood pulsing through my veins, just below the surface of my skin.

I shoved off of the wall and started to walk forward, my knees feeling shaky and unable to support my not-great weight. Jed was already in danger, wasn't that enough for the West Wing? Wasn't the leader of the country enough for these people? Did they really have to take out someone as egotistical, sexist, and elitist as Josh?

I walked forward and saw the entirety of White House staffers going into a room. I paused at the doorway, unable to make myself go into the room. To go in would be to receive sympathy and pity, and to receive sympathy and pity would be to admit that Jed was in danger. To receive pity was acknowledging that there was a problem, and that he might die. I leaned up against another wall and tried to let my mind relax and go over the events of the last few minutes.

My husband had been shot. He was in surgery right now, and there was an anesthesiologist that might reveal his MS to a thousand waiting cameras. It was all a little bit much to deal with, but it was much better than being in the operating room, your brain stretched into a thousand places at once. I took a deep breath, steadying myself and then I stepped forward and opened up the door.

Everyone's heads turned to me, their eyes curious, fearful, and sympathetic. CJ took a step towards me and then stopped, as if she was unsure about how I would react. I nodded at her and managed to make eye contact with everyone in the room, even the Secret Service agents in the back. Leo nodded at me. "So we're just going to stay here," he said, ending his speech.

Everyone looked around awkwardly, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. I was the first to make a move, grabbing one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs and sitting down in it. You'd think they could get something at least a little more comfortable for the First Lady, but oh well. I wasn't complaining. I don't know how much time had passed before I decided to walk out and about the hospital. Things were just becoming too cramped for me in the small room.

I walked around the hallway, looking around at all the different rooms. I didn't hear the call at first. "Dr. Bartlet!" I turned around to see the Doctor that I had talked with earlier walking swiftly down the halls towards me. "What are you doing here?" he asked me curiously. I looked around self-consciously.

"Just walking around," I said. "Is there any word on him?" I asked anxiously, suddenly wondering why he was out here instead of operating on Jed.

"We just got done with the operation, and everything looks fine," he reassured me. It took a second for the words to sink in. Jed was fine. He was not going to die. His surgery had taken an incredibly short time. It felt like I had been carrying five twenty pound sacks on my shoulders and then some strong person had taken them off at all once. I felt like I was standing three feet taller than I had been. It's strange how much relief can help your posture.

"No internal damage?" I asked, walking back to the room with him. I saw random people walking in the hallways and felt like hugging them, felt like dancing around the hallways with them. _My husband's going to be fine! My husband's going to be all right! _I managed to smother my giddy grin, realizing that this was still a hospital, and as such, was a somber place.

"No, everything looks like it's going to be fine," he reassured me. "He should be awake from the anesthesia in just a few hours." I took a breath to steady myself and then asked the fatal question.

"What about Josh?" His entire demeanor changed. When he had been telling me about Jed he had been quietly pleased, the kind where you know they're just waiting to go into a quiet room so they can jump around and congratulate themselves. Now he seemed like the person who has just been told that their puppy died.

"The bullet lacerated his pulmonary artery," he said reluctantly. "We're going to have to go in and try to repair it manually." I felt my heart sink to my feet at this noise. And the night had been looking so good for all of two minutes!

I searched my brain for solutions, racking it for almost every procedureI knew.I could tell that the answer would be no, and I knew that he had already thought of this, but I couldn't help but throw out one more suggestion. He shook his head. By then we were at the door and I knew what I had to do. I thanked him for his trouble and walked in to break the bad news to the staff.

The broken look on their faces was too much for me to take. I hate being the bearer of bad news; I can't stand the look that people get in their eyes when their hopes get crushed. I've had to deal with that look too many times since I moved my residence to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I eventually wandered back into the waiting room and took a seat beside Donna. She was staring straight forward, her eyes wide and unfocused.

It was so strange to see Donna sitting still. She was normally such a ball of energy, jumping around the West Wing, full of enthusiasm for the job. I know there's been times when she's the only thing that's managed to get Josh through a particularly hard day and for that the President and the entirety of the White House staff love her. Also, she's just a good person to be around.

"Donna?" I asked softly. She jumped and stared wildly at me. It took her a second to get oriented to her surroundings. When she did, the despair seemed to return with a greater force to her eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," she said, making an obvious effort to talk around the lump in her throat. She played idly with one of the buttons on her sweater that didn't really match the shirt she had underneath.

"Donna, Josh is going to be fine," I reassured her. It was an empty promise and I could see from the look in her eyes that she knew that as well.

"Yes I know," she said. I smiled sadly. Even now she was still observant of the proper procedures of respect. She did not openly contradict me. In a way I wished she had. I wish she had screamed and yelled in my face: _how do you know that? How do you know he's going to be all right? Everyone keeps on telling me that, but no one has any real proof for me! _

I sat back in my chair, becoming so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn't hear her soft whisper. "It's just strange to think that a few hours ago I was worrying about what I would have to do at the office tomorrow," she began softly. "Everything can change so fast…and I can't think about tomorrow, I can't imagine what'll happen if…if…" her voice tapered off and she was shaking her head. The tears were threatening to fall now, but Donna managed to rein them in, shaking her head as if she was swearing to herself that she would not cry.

I could not think of anything to say to this so I just settled for sitting and looking supportive. I found that it was a role to which I was surprisingly suited to. Donna took a second to compose herself and she went on. "He let me go home early tonight. I wonder…if I had been with him…I could have gotten to him faster, I could have been with him…I don't know, have done something important…" she shook her head again.

I reached out and tentatively patted her on the shoulder. "Donna, there was nothing you could have done," I reassured her. "There was nothing more anyone could have done. It was just one of those things. You can't change things that Fate wants."

"I know that," she whispered to herself. "I know that. But I can't help thinking that I might lose him tonight…" her voice caught again, but she soldiered on through it. "And when I think that I might lose him, all I want to do is just to crawl up into a hole somewhere and die," she managed to choke out. The tears threatened to come out, they were hovering on the edge of her eyelashes, but she pulled them in again and her cheek stayed dry.

"Donna, I swear to you that Josh is going to make it through," I said, suddenly determined that my favorite sexist was going to make it alive through the night. Donna looked at me, sensing a difference between this promise and my earlier empty promise. Perhaps it was the determination in my voice that made me so much easier to believe the second time around.

Donna nodded and stared off into space again. I stared at the same place in the wall that she was, mulling over what I had just said. I had just given a promise that I didn't know would succeed. But I believed it would succeed. I needed it to succeed. Because as much as I needed Jed…that was how much Donna needed Josh. My promise had to succeed.


	19. Charlie Young2

A/N: Here for another round! Well, it's been a fun run. We might even be out of Part One after a year and lots of chapters. We probably should get out of Part One and move into Part Two. Oh well. Procrastination is a horrible thing, no?

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. I own nothing.

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Charlie Young's POV

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I remember the huge wave of relief that washed over me when the First Lady told us that the President was awake. He was awake. No lasting harm had been done, and he was going to be fine. Of course, I still had the overwhelming pressure of Josh resting on my chest but half of the previous weight had been removed. This time when I sank into a chair I could fully appreciate the feeling of the metal up against my tired back. They can't make the chairs at least a little more comfortable?

I stopped back in the small room where they had put us to see how everyone's mood was. The general mood was that of relief, though you could still tell by the haunted expressions that they were still thinking about Josh, who was still in surgery.

I was feeling fine until Donna came up to talk to me. "So they're sure that the President's going to be all right?" she asked nervously, biting her lip anxiously.

"Yeah, the doctors say that he should be all right. He'll be waking up any moment now. Of course there's still going to be some scarring, but when you consider what it could have been…" I stopped as I realized that I was babbling. Donna didn't seem to realize this and stood with a wistful expression on her face.

"Donna, he's going to be fine," I said, wondering if I was treading on dangerous territory. She looked at me, a surprised expression on her face. Did she really think that none of us could guess what was going on in her head? "The doctors at GW are probably some of the best in the entire world. It's going to be all right."

"Oh, I know it is," she said with a falsely bright smile. I debated on whether or not to call her bluff and then decided that if she wanted to lie to herself and make herself feel better I really had no part in that. Who was I to try to ruin her good mood, as faux as it was?

The atmosphere in the room soon became stifling and I walked outside. The deserted hallways offered more peace, but that was a mixed blessing. More peace meant more time to concentrate on thoughts. And as these things so often happened, my darkest thoughts soon rose to the surface and refused to go back down. Thoughts about Josh chased themselves around my head. This is part of the reason that I like the job I have so much. I don't have time to think about a lot of things.

I was getting ready to go find the First Lady, just to see if there was something that I could do when I ran into a young woman. Her face looked vaguely familiar, but I was sure that I had never seen her before in my life. She seemed hesitant. "Sorry," she apologized, backing up a few steps.

"It's all right," I said, surveying her. Something was just so familiar about her. It was lurking in the back of my mind, just waiting for a chance to come out. "What are you here for?" I asked, not realizing that it might be rude.

"Oh, my father was taken here earlier," she said, looking around. I watched where her eyes were darting to and I saw several men dressed in suits that had most definitely not been there before. My mouth dropped open in amazement.

"Eleanor?" I asked softly. She looked at me in surprise.

"How do you know…wait a second," she said, her eyes narrowing. "You're Charlie Young aren't you? I've seen your pictures in the papers."

"Yeah, you and the white supremacists," I muttered. She gave me a strange look, but left my remark alone. I shook my head, astounded at my rudeness. "Sorry," I apologized. "What can I do for you?"

"I just came by here to see if my father was all right," she said, looking down at the ground. I narrowed my eyes, trying to remember where she came from.

"You go to John Hopkins, right?" I asked. She nodded. "All right. The President's still asleep from the anesthesia, but if you want to go and wait he should be awake in a few minutes." She shook her head, looking suddenly fearful.

"No, that's all right," she said, taking a half-step back. "I think that I'll just go and see my mother. Do you know where she is?" I opened the door to the small waiting room where the First Lady was.

"Mrs. Bartlet," I called softly to her. She came over to me, a curious expression on her face. "Eleanor is here to see you." Her curious expression became suddenly pleased.

She walked out of the room and held her arms out. "Eleanor!" she cried. Eleanor's face suddenly became much happier.

"Mom," she said gratefully, hugging her mother tightly. "I just heard it on the news…and I just managed to get in now. Is he all right?"

I walked away from the rest of the conversation, feeling that I had no right to hear this personal family moment. I suddenly had the urge to go and see Zoey. I had no idea where she would be, but I thought that her father's room might be a good place to start.

I had guessed right. Zoey was sitting outside of the room, her hands clasped. She looked up and gave me a wan smile when she saw me. "Charlie," she said softly, standing up and moving into my arms.

I held her there for what felt like hours, eons, and ages. We had a comfortable silence where we didn't need to say anything to each other; the sound of our breathing was comfort enough. "The doctors think that he's going to wake up any second now," Zoey whispered. "We should probably get Mom in here so she can be with him when he wakes up."

"I think she's with Eleanor now," I whispered into her hair. Zoey pulled away, her eyes wide with confusion.

"Ellie's here?" she asked me. At my confused expression she shrugged. "I just didn't think that Ellie would be here," she explained. "Ellie's never liked Washington D.C. that much. She's not like me. I love it here, and I love what Dad does."

"Hopefully you love the people that he works with as well," I said teasingly. She laughed, and gently hit me in the chest. There was a slight pause after this as both of our thoughts went to Josh. "I…I…" I stammered, not managing to get anything else out of my mouth. She nodded, knowing what I meant to say.

"I think you should come with me and get Mom. She's the best person to wake him up and tell him about…and tell him," she finished lamely. She too was unable to get the words out of her mouth.

We walked into the room and saw the First Lady sitting with Donna. Donna stared at her lap while the First Lady looked around the room, her entire posture screaming discomfort. She looked up at the door when we entered. I cleared my throat and inclined my head, indicating that she should come out. She stood up, patted Donna uncomfortably on the shoulder and then joined us outside.

"They think that the President's going to wake up soon," I whispered to her. "We felt that you should be there with him when he does." She nodded and started to walk to his room. The three of us walked in silence. I stopped when we came to the room. The Secret Service agents that were always there opened the door and the First Lady and Zoey walked into the room.

Zoey realized that I was not following her and she turned around curiously. "Charlie," she said, gesturing into the room. I took a step back and shook my head.

"No, I shouldn't, it should just be family," I said firmly. This statement gave rise to another question. "Where's Eleanor? Shouldn't she be here too?"

"Oh, she just stopped by to make sure everything was all right probably," Zoey said, rolling her eyes. "She probably has class that she doesn't want to miss. Oh well. At least she stopped by."

"You go and stay with your dad," I said, forcing a smile. "I'll be out here if he needs me." She nodded and shut the door behind her. I slumped down into the chair that she had been sitting in previously.

Though things were looking up for this night, I still could not stop myself from sinking into dark thoughts. We still didn't know how Josh was. Another morbid thought came to mind. From the way that Donna was acting, and her entire demeanor tonight I could tell something. If we lost Josh tonight there was no doubt in my mind that we would also lose Donna.


	20. Donna Moss3

A/N: Well, I know that this is highly overdue, but here it is: another chapter of Through a Friend's Pain! Yes, I know that you are all amazed and astonished. And I know that amazed and astonished mean the same things as well. I'm not stupid, gosh!

Erm, yes, well you'll have to forgive me for my overly cheery mood. Just had a bit too much sugar is all.

Disclaimer: I think that I've used possibly all of the sarcastic remarks that I have in my library for this thing. Oh well. I own nothing.

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Donna Moss's POV

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I wish that I could say that I lived through every second of Josh's agony, that I was awake, present and conscious for each heartbreaking moment. But eventually the anxiety took its toll on me and I fell asleep. I fought it as much as I could, my eyes slowly closing and then jerking open. I was furious at myself for this weakness that I was showing. How dare I fall asleep while Josh was still on the operating table, when he might be dying at this very moment? Then the thought of Josh dying would fill me with enough adrenaline to keep me awake for at least the next five minutes. Then my head would start dropping again. One time I was not able to wake myself up.

When I finally woke up, everyone else was clustered on the other side of the room. It was almost as if they were scared to be around me. My sensible brain told me that this was because I was sleeping and they didn't want to disturb me, but the irrational, worried part of my brain told me that they didn't want to be around me because something horrible had happened. "What is it?" I asked, hurriedly wiping the sleep out of my eyes. "What's happened to Josh?"

"Nothing's happened," Zoey's Secret Service agent told me. I think her name was Gina. According to what everyone else had said in recounting the events of the nights she had been the first one to realize what had been happening. Had it not been for her people might actually be dead. "Josh is still in surgery and we're just waiting to see what happens."

I nodded, my mouth dry. "I'm going out for a drink of water," I said, trying to swallow and failing miserably. Everyone nodded and no one tried to stop me as I walked out of the small waiting room. I needed to move around. If I remained staring at the wall I was going to go insane.

_Well, there's one good thing about this hospital, _I thought, walking around the hallways. _At least they mark their water fountains clearly. _

I glanced around the hallways and a startling thought came to me. _Why go back to the waiting room?_ This was a completely unforeseen conclusion and the arrival of it surprised me. I actually turned around to see whether someone had thrown a piece of paper at me. Nope, no sniggering little boys that were running down the hallway, that was definitely an idea.

And then, yet another startling idea hit me. Why not go to see Josh? Looking back on it now, these all look like perfectly reasonable conclusions to go to, but at the time I was amazed by the random processes of my brain. I looked around, to make sure that no one was watching me and sauntered down the hallway. I thought on where the surgery rooms might be and was finding my knowledge of hospitals woefully inadequate when I heard a voice behind me. "Donna?"

I shrieked and whirled around, my hand pressed onto my heart. Leo McGarry was standing behind me, a concerned look on his weathered face. "What are you doing down here?" I asked him, trying to keep the note of accusation out of my voice. He was still the Chief of Staff and still my boss, even though it felt like things such as that shouldn't matter tonight.

"I should ask you the same question," he told me, giving me a tired smile. I suddenly felt sorry for him. He had been floating back between the hospital and the West Wing all night, trying to be with his Deputy Chief of Staff and his best friend while trying to run the country. That night I think that Leo had the hardest job of any of us.

"I was just taking a walk," I said unconvincingly. Leo knew that I was lying, and he knew what my true purpose was in walking down a deserted hallway.

"I just came from there," he told me. "The President woke up and wanted to see him. I can take you down there if you want." I bit my lip. Now that it came to it I wasn't quite sure whether or not I wanted to see Josh.

"Take me there," my mouth said before my brain knew what was happening. "I want to see him." Leo nodded and escorted me through several doors. We came to one that said Surgery Room 1. Leo nodded at me.

"I'll leave you alone," he said, opening the door. I walked in and the door closed. I was reminded of the fact that part of this was a teaching hospital as I noticed a huge window on the operating room. This must be where the students watched the operation and learned. I walked closer to the window and pressed my nose up against the glass in an effort to see better. I squinted my eyes and suddenly the scene became clear to me.

Doctors were methodically cutting Josh open. I didn't want to look, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the gruesome sight. It seemed like there should be more blood than there was. All in all it looked like a rather clean situation, and not what you would think would be the case when it came from an operation where someone's chest was being cut open.

It was strange to see Josh sleeping. Come to think of it I hardly ever saw him sleep. He would nap occasionally, but usually he was so focused on whatever he was trying to get accomplished, be it arguing with Congress or with Toby, that he would ignore sleep entirely. But now he was stuck here in this sleep, thanks to the bullets of some fake terrorists.

I looked at him with pity. I wanted to go over, yell at him, and then see him shoot up, annoyed at me. I remembered how we'd first met, and how he hadn't wanted to hire me, but then I basically conned him into hiring me. All right, I wasn't exactly proud that I'd conned my boss into hiring me, but he couldn't live without me now.

My breath caught in my chest as I looked at the procedure. You always think of the medical operations being done on someone else, someone else's boss, someone else's friend. You never think that it could be done to your boss or to your friend. If you think about it for a moment you always feel safe when you think about tragedies, because it happens to someone else. That's what you think until it happens to one of your friends, until it happens to your boss.

I couldn't stay there anymore. I had to get out. I wasn't brave enough to stay in there, I wasn't brave enough to support Josh through his time of need. I ran out of the room, hating myself for being weak. I leaned against the wall, panting with fear and anxiety. I self-loathing that I felt for myself at that moment was bigger than even Josh's, Toby's or Sam's hatred for Republicans.

"Donna?" I heard a voice ask. I looked down the hallway and saw Sam walking towards me. "What are you doing down here?" I sniffed and hurriedly wiped the slight wetness that had developed at the corners of my eyes. He took in the room number and the light of recognition went on his face. "You were looking in on Josh?"

I nodded, unable to speak around the huge lump that had developed in my throat. I hated myself yet again. Showing weakness in private was bad enough, but showing weakness in front of someone else…that was simply unacceptable.

"I just thought that if I saw him then I could make him better," I said, shrugging my shoulders helplessly. "But I went in there, and it wasn't like the episodes of ER that I saw on TV. It was real, and it was Josh, and I keep on remembering the last things that he said to me…and I still didn't get his chair fixed," I realized, making yet another mental note. Sam looked at me in confusion. "His chair broke when he sat down on it, and it was rather embarrassing for him," I explained quickly. "And now I have to get it fixed…" I bit my lip in anxiety.

Sam laid a gentle, restraining hand on my shoulder. "It's all right," he said soothingly. "Everything's going to be all right."

"But what if it's not?" I asked him bluntly. And Sam, the weaver of words in the West Wing, had no sure and ready answer for me that _would_ make everything all right. In a way it made it made it better that Sam didn't know what to say. At least that way I didn't feel like I was the only one who was completely lost for an action or for something to do.

"I don't know if I want to go in there or not," Sam said, gazing apprehensively at the door. He swallowed audibly, and I noticed that his hands were trembling. "He's my best friend in the world…but if you can't handle it…" I shot him a sharp look, but said nothing. "God, what kind of friend am I if I can't even go in to see my best friend while he's going through something like this?" Sam asked, the same self-loathing that I had felt before in his voice.

"That's what I was wondering earlier," I said softly, gazing down at the polished white tile of the hospital floor. "If he's going through something this hard and this horrible, then what kind of person am I if I can't at least try to help him with this?" I shook my head, putting my hand over my mouth, a futile gesture to stop any more words from slipping out of my lips.

"Is this survivor's guilt or something like it?" Sam wondered, a puzzled look on his face. I had to hold back a laugh at the look on his face. It was just so much like Sam to wonder about intellectual things at a time like this. No matter what else was happening he had to be learning, gathering knowledge, or using the knowledge that he had accumulated. Sam was one of those people that were never satisfied with what they had done. He always wanted to go the extra step, make it that much better, and know just that much more about the issue. It's part of what made him such a good writer, and it's also part of what makes him such a good friend.

"Donna, that's very inappropriate laughter," Sam said, a very serious look on his face, but the inflection on his voice told me that he was struggling not to chuckle as well. Eventually he gave up and let out a few short laughs. "Besides, Josh would be making some sort of inappropriate humor right about now anyway," Sam said, shaking his head. I smiled weakly at him. Strangely enough, I did not feel guilty about laughing. Sam was right. If Josh was here then he would be making someone else laugh about either something that he had done or said.

"You realize that I'm probably going to have to go on some morning shows?" Sam suddenly asked. I looked at him with a critical woman's eye. Sam had come out of the shooting looking surprisingly normal. His hair wasn't even out of place. The others had a worn, haggard look to them, but Sam looked like he had just walked out of his apartment, ready to start the day.

"I could actually believe that," I said, raising an eyebrow at his appearance. How many other people can survive a murder attempt and still have perfect hair and nary a wrinkle on their suit? A thought came to me that banished all wonderings of Sam's strangely clean, pressed suit out of my head. "But what'll you talk about?" I asked him. Sam shrugged.

"Just what happened I suppose," he said nonchalantly. "And maybe about what the White House is going to do about it. CJ would normally brief me for this, but she's a bit shaken up. That's why I think that I'm going to have to do the shows. I know that Leo's going to want someone from the White House in the morning shows, and if CJ can't do it then I'm the natural choice. Besides, I'm more photogenic than Toby," he told me with an easy grin.

"I need coffee," I said simply. I glanced at the door, feeling the familiar feeling of butterflies fluttering up in my stomach. "Just one thing." I pushed the door open, and walked into the room, now prepared for what I was going to see. It was still pitiful to see Josh lying on the table, but I felt now, more than ever that _everything was going to be all right. _It might not be all right for quite a while, but it eventually would be. Josh was going to survive. He wouldn't be the same, I knew that.

There would be a lot of healing to do, both physically and mentally. It would be forever before he was ready to come back to work, and imagine the hospital bills! But he would make it through all right. I no longer felt the depression and fear that I had while I was previously in the room. Call it a premonition, or whatever you want, but I could see Josh walking around, happy and healthy once again. And that thought made me positively giddy.

"Donna?" Sam uncertainly asked. I jumped when he spoke. I had thought that I was the only person in the room. He came up beside me and looked at the doctors surrounding Josh.

"Yeah," I said, still unable to tear myself away from Josh. I managed to pull away from the window and started to walk away. I didn't feel like that much of a traitor, and I knew that Josh was going to be all right in the end. Sam held the door open for me, and I turned around to look at Josh once more and almost waved at him. I stopped myself at the last second, and contented myself with a small farewell smile.

"How about that coffee now?" Sam asked, going into the main room, not the horrible small waiting room that they had given us. As I was pouring the coffee I happened to glance out of the window. The sun was slowly rising, sending the rays of sunlight out through the windows and into the waiting room. With my newfound sense of optimism I could not help but smile and laugh to myself softly.

Yes, Josh had through a horrible thing. We also had been through it with him. That night it hadn't been only Josh going through pain. We also had gone through it as well. Everyone who worked in the West Wing was somehow involved in the shooting, and even people who didn't work in the West Wing. That night, tragedy reached out to everyone.

But it was eventually over. We had gone through our ordeal and had emerged from it better people. The President was all right, and would return to the White House possibly tomorrow if he continued to improve. Josh was still in surgery, but he was out of the danger zone, I knew that. Somehow, I just _knew_ that he was going to be all right. And we would go back to work and try to make the world a better place.

I couldn't help myself. Despite the seriousness of the place where we were, and all of the Secret Service agents that were lurking around the waiting room, I opened my mouth and I laughed.

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I know that we arrived rather quickly at the morning, but it was dragging on too long and there had to be some quickening. Besides, we don't know how long that Donna was asleep for. She might have been asleep for hours on end. There's probably going to be an epilogue, which will just tie up all of the loose ends that are still out there.

Hope you enjoyed!


	21. Josh Lyman3

A/N: Wow. This is the last chapter guys. It's been a wild ride, I tell you what. This is probably the most popular of all of my fics, and I would never have gone on without you. There's going to be a little bit of everyone in here, just for the reason that it's the last chapter. Thanks for sticking with me even when I didn't update and for giving critical advice when I really needed it.

And just one last note: I've tried to hint at some Josh/Donna for the entire story, but not much is going to happen between them, because this is supposed to fit in right between the scenes that we were shown in the Season Two openers. Having Josh and Donna confess their love for each other would therefore, change the series. Sorry guys!

Disclaimer: This is the last one of these I'll ever need to write and Thank God. (wipes sweatdrop off)

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Josh Lyman's POV

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the first thing that I noticed when I woke up was that it felt like my throat had been rubbed with sandpaper. And then it felt like my spleen, pancreas, lungs, heart, and liver had been as well. I hurt all over. It felt like I had just been skydiving without a parachute. I immediately tried to go back to sleep, but that plan wasn't working. No, once I was awake and in pain I just _had_ to stay awake and in pain. Add that to the fact that someone kept on calling my name and I was not in a good mood.

"Josh?" they asked me. I tried to answer, but with my throat in the state that it was it was lucky that I was still breathing. Talking was going to take a lot of work, perhaps years worth. "Josh?" I thought that I recognized that voice but I wasn't entirely sure.

The first voice whispered something to another person in the room and they responded. The longer that I was staying awake the more alert my mind became until the point where I could almost identify those two voices.

"Josh, wake up," one of them said gently and the realization hit me like a train. It was the President talking to me. Whew, thank goodness he was all right. I idly wondered how long I had been out. I could remember the shooting in a vague sort of way, but I couldn't piece together right then exactly what had happened, which was probably a good idea.

There was nothing I could say at this point. When you're lying on a hospital bed with the President standing over you, talking to you in a concerned tone of voice, "Hey! How you doing?" just doesn't seem to fit somehow. If I could have smiled I would have at the words that came out of my mouth.

"What's next?"

They stayed after that, but anything that they said to me was lost upon me. My mind decided that we didn't need to be concentrating on such complex things such as questions that wanted to know "Are you all right?" "Does it hurt anywhere?" We had better things to concentrate on, such as what happened to me. I could vaguely remember huge ripping pain in my abdomen, but I couldn't piece together what happened to me after that. Again, this was probably a strategy by my brain to save me and it did. I think that if I had thought about what happened to me at that moment then I would have gone insane and damaged the best brain in the entire West Wing.

It wasn't until I heard a distinctly different, feminine voice that I actually paid attention. Instead of sounding reassured and comforting like the President's and Leo's (I'd figured out that Leo was the other person in my room while I was spending eons of lying on the bed) it sounded tearful and vulnerable. I wanted to take that person and wrap them in my arms and tell them that everything was all right, but unfortunately I couldn't move my appendages.

"Josh?" she asked. _Donna! _My mind cried out, but my stupid, uncooperative throat wouldn't…er…cooperate. "I thought that you were going to die for a while,' she said. I felt semi-embarrassed. This was probably not the kind of thing that she wanted me to hear, yet what could I do to tell her to stop before she ended up saying something that she would regret? I couldn't move my body and I couldn't speak, so I had to listen to her say "I was all right, but I come in here and see you and it all falls apart again. I couldn't bear losing you."

_Aw, that's sweet, _I thought to myself. My benevolence faded at her next words. "Even though you're an incredible anal jerk some of the time I don't know what I would do without you lording your superiority over me." Well, I supposed that was sweet in its special way.

Donna took my hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. "Don't you ever scare me like that again Josh Lyman," she scolded me gently. "If you died then so would I. my God…everyone was right…I think that…" she stopped herself there and it was all that I could do to keep from screaming. It was like a bad romantic comedy where either the hero or heroine always gets interrupted before they can make their huge declaration of feeling to the other. Of course, it works well in a romantic comedy. Not so in real life.

She lay her head down on the side of my bed and I wished that I could lift my hand up and stroke her soft golden hair. I wished that I could do something to let her know that I felt the same way, but I was frozen and I hated it. Something told me that a moment like this would never come again, but I _could not move_ and it was absolutely _killing me._

So all I could do was merely lie there while Donna poured out her heart to me. Eventually she would put down my hand and then I didn't even have the comfortable contact of her skin with mine. But she stayed by my bed, my anchor to the world. If she had left, I have no doubt that I would have gone with her.

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President Bartlet's POV

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"Mr. Bartlet, you have a healthy baby daughter." "Mr. President, Josh Lyman is out of surgery and awake if you would like to see him." Both completely different moments in the history of my life, yet both evoking the same emotion. Thank God. My family was all right. My children were going to be all right, and would live for me to see them grow and mature.

I didn't care what else happened. The second that I heard that Josh was all right I was going to go see him. If Abbey had tried to stop me there then I would have had to seriously consider a divorce. Fortunately Abbey knew me well enough to know that there was going to be no stopping me. She let me go with a relieved sigh. If the doctors hadn't told us not to put too many people in the room I'm sure that she would have gone with us. As it was we had to beat back Toby, Donna, Sam and CJ with a stick. They were ravenous in their desire to see their friend. It really warmed their heart at how they sent mutinous glances at the doctor and how Toby mildly threatened in a soft voice that he controlled very powerful people in the justice department who could have him up for a malpractice treatment faster than you could say "No fair". I have such sweet and caring people that work for me. Leo's got a real talent for personnel.

And speaking of Leo, he was there when I went to see Josh. He'd been practically inseparable from me the entire night. To this day I have no idea of how he managed to keep things running at the West Wing and stay with Josh and me at the same time. The man must be supernatural or something. We stood over the sleeping man, who was usually so energetic. He looked older somehow, and more careworn. I felt a surge of rage go through me as I realized that we would never have exactly the same Josh back. He would come back, yes, but I'd lost the Josh that I'd come to look at as one of the sons that I'd never had.

I ran my hand gently over his forehead, smoothing back his hair. He stirred at the touch and hope sprang within me. "Josh?" I asked him. His eyes twitched underneath his eyelids and I could tell that he was fighting to regain consciousness. One thing you could say about Josh: he fought authority figures, but for all his fighting, when someone came along that he respected he did listen to them. But of course I'm flattering myself.

He moaned softly and I felt tears springing to my eyes. My God. He was awake and it didn't look like he was beyond repair. His lips moved and I immediately felt guilty that I hadn't leaned in closer to hear what he said. "I'm sorry Josh, I couldn't hear," I said, moving my ear next to his mouth. His words came out in a groan that made me cry and smile at the same time. I moved away, wiping the stray wetness away from my eyes.

"What'd he say?" Leo asked curiously. I gently rested my hand on Josh's forehead.

"He said "What's next?"" I said proudly. Soon, I could tell by the slackness of Josh's face that he was asleep and it wouldn't be worth spending any more time with him. He would wake up and soon we would have the wisecracking Josh back in the West Wing. He would be different, but he would be alive, and that was all that I cared about. It was all that I could do from dropping to my knees and praising the Lord. There might have been other people in the world that could have done Josh's job, and maybe several of them might have done it better. But no one could ever handle his job with the same passion and humor that Josh did, and the staff never would rally behind someone else like they rallied behind Josh.

The previous words that I had spoken ran through my head. _"Look what happened." _There was still that surge of guilt that everyone felt. If I hadn't been the President, then Josh never would have gotten hurt. I'd mentioned that to Leo, and he had quickly and necessarily brought me back down to Earth.

"Mr. President, forgive me, but that's egocentric of you to assume that," he had told me. "If Charlie hadn't been dating your daughter, if the tent had been up, if Josh hadn't gone back…there's a million things that we could have done to prevent this, and not one of them was done. It's not your fault any more than it's Charlie's fault, or Zoey's fault, or the Secret Service's fault. It was just one of those things. And what you do when something like that happens is that you thank God that it wasn't worse than it was and work to make sure that something like that never happens again. That's all you can do."

I knew there was a reason why I picked this guy for my Chief of Staff.

Leo escorted me to my room and then he was off again, saying that he had something that he had to take care of in the West Wing. "Make sure to get some sleep sometime today!" I called after him as he was leaving the room.

"I doubt very much that'll happen Mr. President," he called back as he was exiting. I smiled and shook my head. Zoey walked into the room as Leo was exiting.

"Is Josh all right?" she asked. Her eyes were red from crying. My fatherly instinct took over and I held my arms out. "I'm not going to hurt you if I hug you, am I?" she asked worriedly.

"No, you're going to be fine," I said, smiling at the careful way that she wrapped her arms around me. "Josh is going to be fine," I assured her as I rocked her back and forth. "You can go see him as soon as he wakes up if you want to."

"All right," she murmured, and then she too belonged to the ages. Abbey came in and started to say something, but quieted her voice as she saw our youngest daughter resting comfortably.

"It's been a hard night on her hasn't it?" she asked indulgently, wiping away a strand of hair from Zoey's face.

"A hard night for her?" I asked indignantly. "I was the one who was shot and had to be operated on!" Abbey shook her head and gently scratched my scalp.

"Oh Jed, don't be such a drama queen," she teased playfully. She leaned against the headboard and sighed deeply, her hand moving idly along my receding hairline. Being the leader of the free world is really hell on your devilish good looks.

"Just think Jed," she murmured, and I could tell that she was swiftly falling into the realms of sleep. "We made it out. We survived. How many other people could have been that lucky?"

And then the sleep disease must have been passed onto me, because that's the last thing that I remember being said.

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CJ Cregg's POV

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One day, I will quit my job. I will simply walk out of the White House and never return. And that day, everyone who has ever heard me threaten to quit will be amazed and astonished. They won't know what happened and then they'll be pretty darn sorry that they didn't take my threats seriously.

But unfortunately that happy day was not today, and I still had a great deal of work to do. "I quit," I muttered to myself, shuffling through several papers on my desk. I had managed to dodge a bullet with the television through Sam, and through watching his interviews, had finally figured out what had happened last night. It was a bit odd to find that your life was in the hands of someone like Sam. Not that it was a bad thing to have your life debt to Sam. It was just…odd, that was all. But he did give back my necklace, and he could have easily claimed that as payment for saving my life. I thought it was rather nice of him to give me back my necklace.

"Can I come in?" I looked up to see Danny leaning against my doorframe.

"Sure," I said with false happiness. "It's not like I have to do a lot of work. Thank God that we didn't have an assassination attempt on the President last night. Imagine the amount of work that the Press Secretary might have then. She might not have enough time to entertain you if that happened."

Danny sat down on my couch, the insolent man. "I'm sensing sarcasm," he noted calmly. I slammed some papers down on my desk and looked at him, my glasses askew.

"Really?" I asked him in frustration. "Do you think that you sense sarcasm? I can't imagine what would have given you that thought. It's all in your head."

"So they're working you pretty hard?" he asked nonchalantly. I gritted my teeth, telling myself to keep a calm head and not to kill Danny. I was finding it harder and harder to hold onto that resolution.

"Just a little bit, yeah," I told him impatiently. "Was there a reason that you wanted to come down here other than to annoy me? Because if you came down here for a comment our official position is no comment."

"No, I was just thinking over the historical significance of what happened last night," Danny said coolly. "I think that certain aspects of it have been lost here, just because of the fact that Josh and the President were both shot."

"And what are you trying to say?" I asked angrily, finally giving up on doing any work while Danny was in the office. "I've been trying to balance the story all night: trying to give the national media impersonal information while still remembering that it's one of my best friends on the operating table. Don't tell me that I've lost some aspects of the story."

"I know that you haven't," Danny said calmly, not at all fazed by my outburst. "I was thinking that maybe some Americans have. Either that, or they won't know the entire story." At my lost expression he hurried to explain. "So, it's our job to show them the entire story," he slowly explained. "And who better to show them that story than the people who lived through that night? I'm going to write a book," he explained. "It's going to show the entire story of that night. Don't worry, it won't be released until after the Presidency is over," he said, an indulgent smile on his face. "What do you think?"

I considered his idea carefully and could find no horrible wrong with it. "I think…that's a really good idea," I told him, obviously surprising him.

"I'm going to get every single person who was there, and even some who weren't," he told me, a proud smile on his face. "It's going to be the bestseller for at least several months."

And now that you're reading this, you have to tell me: Was it the bestseller? And if so, for how long?

Epilogue

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Donna's POV

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Josh was asleep again. It was ironic, the fact that he'd spent most of the night and a good deal of the morning unconscious and now he wanted to sleep. Then again, he'd looked pretty woozy when I first saw him wake up, so it was probably a good idea to let him get some sleep.

I tell you what, at that point, I wanted to get some sleep. I'd been awake nearly the entire night and I wanted to rest. I kept on drifting off while I was sitting next to his bed. My head would droop down and I would manage to pull it up at the last second. I wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer. I was going to fall asleep and Josh was going to wake up and he would feel alone, and then he would die. At least that's the way that my mind was working at that point in time.

I tried to pinch myself, I took off my jacket to make myself feel cold, I did everything that I could think of. And I was still falling asleep. It was horrible. I couldn't make myself stay awake…I was falling asleep…going, going…

"Donna?"

I sat straight up, all thoughts of sleep immediately banished. It had to be a little ironic that I'd taken desperate measures to keep myself awake, yet it was a barely heard whisper that managed to stimulate my adrenaline and keep me going.

"I'm here," I said, shaking my head to get rid of all last traces of exhaustion. "I'm awake. Don't you even think that I'm asleep yet, because I'm not. And I wasn't going to fall asleep, I was just saying that."

"Okay," Josh said, raising his eyebrow sluggishly. He seemed more lucid this time and I didn't think that it was necessary for me to ring for a nurse. "Shouldn't you be at the office?"

"Do you want me to be at the office?" I asked him, immediately concerned. "Is there something that I should be doing? Toby said that he would send a few assistants to help with the work at your office so I could be here, but if you think that there's something that I should be doing, then I'll go back there right now and finish it." Josh raised his hand and cut off my babbling.

"There's nothing that you need to be doing and that was really sweet of Toby to do that," he mused. "I must remember to thank him one day, using exactly those words. I just thought that you might want to be somewhere else."

"No, I wanted to be right here," I told him, hoping that he wouldn't ask for a reason why. He didn't and I breathed easier. "Do you want me to go?"

"No, I really don't," he murmured, reaching out and grabbing my hand. "I actually want you to stay right here."

I squeezed his hand, tears starting up in my eyes. The way that he was looking up at me made me tear up. He was looking with absolute trust and faith in his eyes. The only thing that I'd ever seen look up at me with that much trust was a puppy that was born on the farm.

"Josh…" I stalled, thinking of what I wanted to say. _I love you. _"I hope you get better soon. I think you'd better go back to sleep now."

Josh lazily nodded, his eyes already closing.

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El fin.

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Wow. It took a really long time for this to be completed. Sorry that I put you through so much guys. But hey. It's over and we all survived, eh?

_This collection was compiled by Danny Concanon, with help from Ms. CJ Cregg and Mr. Joshua Lyman._

_Editing was supplied by Mr. Toby Ziegler and Mr. Samuel Seaborn._

_Typing and filing was provided by Ms. Donnatella Moss and Mr. Charlie Young. _

_Task-Managing and Administrative Organizing was done by Mr. Leo McGarry. _

_Medical Help for breakdowns was provided by Mrs. Abbey Bartlet and Ms. Eleanor Bartlet. _

_A Presidential Seal of Approval was delivered by Mr. Josiah Bartlet._


End file.
